TIE TEMPLE 
OF VIRTUE 



PAUL REVERE 
FROTHINGHAM 




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rop\Tiglil N" 



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THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 



THE 

TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

BY 
PAUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1907 



I U^rtAHYef CONGRESS 
two Cooies Received 

SEPH 190^ 

CwynrW Irrtry 

cuss /i XXc, No. 
COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT 1907 BY PAUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published September iqorj 



TO 

A. C. F. 



CONTENTS 

The Temple of Virtue 3 

The Pillar of Self-Control .... 33 

The Pillar of Courage 61 

The Pillar of Prudence 97 

The Pillar of Magnanimity .... 127 
The Altar of Love 155 



And if a man love righteousness, her labors are 
virtues; for she teacheth temperance and prudence, jus- 
tice and fortitude: which are such things as men can 
have nothing more profitable in their life. — Wisdom 
OF Solomon, viii, 7. 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

"If a man love righteousness," we read 
in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, 
"her labors are virtues; for she teacheth 
temperance and prudence, justice and 
fortitude." These are four great virtues. 
The world has long been well acquainted 
with them; and it is an interesting and 
suggestive fact, indicative of the unity of 
human thinking and experience and the 
clearness of moral insight, that they are 
the very virtues which were set apart as 
most important by the highest thought 
of ancient Greece. Plato, as most of us 
know well, and Aristotle, with the loyalty 
of true discipleship, called strong atten- 
tion to four conspicuous virtues. These, 
as they were outlined and described in 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
the "Republic," and have been translated 
ever since, were wisdom and temperance, 
courage and justice. 

Neither the Hebrew moralist, of course, 
who tells us that he sought out wisdom 
for his bride, and loved her beauty, nor 
the Grecian thinker, whose thoughts are 
still an inspiration to mankind, originated 
these particular virtues. They merely re- 
cognized their peculiar significance, and 
perceived their exceptional importance for 
the life of the individual and the welfare 
of the state. To the famous philosopher of 
Greece they were the cardinal, or hinge 
virtues, on which all other virtues were 
believed to hang or to depend. For that 
is what cardinal means, — a hinge. And 
the thought of the Jewish writer was evi- 
dently much the same. At least he was 
convinced that "nothing more profitable" 
4 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

than these special virtues could possibly 
be found for human life. 

Whether such, however, be the case or 
not, there can be no doubt that much of 
the dignity and worth of human charac- 
ter depends upon the presence in people's 
lives of these or closely kindred qualities. 
The moral life — and the religious life 
as well when we see it at its best and 
noblest — is made up in large part of 
separate and clearly distinguishable vir- 
tues. What these great virtues are, whence 
they spring, how they declare themselves, 
and whither they conduct the soul, are 
things deserving careful and devout con- 
sideration. 

Goodness almost always has been looked 

upon as having a divine or supernatural 

origin. The highest human qualities have 

ever been considered the attributes of 

5 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
heavenly or spiritual beings, if not indeed 
distinctly centred and embodied in one 
Supreme Creator who embraced them all. 
The moral law, as understood by nearly 
all the early peoples, was honored and 
enforced as having been imparted from 
on high. Moses had no monopoly, in this 
respect, of heavenly favors. The claim of 
divine assistance which was made for him 
by later generations was likewise made for 
Numa and the great Lycurgus, for Minos 
and the mythical Manu. 

Moreover, it is an interesting fact that 
among the ancient Greeks — whose sense 
of beauty was so keen, and whose power 
to express it never yet has been surpassed 
— moral abstractions, or special virtues, 
were freely honored in a public and re- 
ligious way. The stranger in Athens 
twenty centuries ago might have noticed 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
not alone the wayside altar that attracted 
Paul, which was built in honor of an 
unknown God; but he would have seen 
there other altars built to such definite 
human qualities as modesty and patience, 
truthfulness, liberality and mercy. His- 
tory, indeed, has preserved particular men- 
tion of an altar to the last-named quality. 
"For," said Pausanias,^ in writing of the 
things he saw in Athens, "the Athenians 
have in the market-place among other 
things not universally notable an Altar 
of Mercy, to whom, though most useful 
of all the gods to the life of man and 
its vicissitudes, the Athenians alone of all 
the Greeks assign honors." 

Among the ancient Romans this inter- 
esting and suggestive custom was carried 

^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by 
A. R. Shilleto, vol. i, chap, xviii. 

7 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

out still further, and given very beauti- 
ful and dignified expression. This sturdy 
people, as all our schoolboys know, had a 
mighty multitude of gods and goddesses. 
Almost all the sweeping forces and the 
striking features in the outward world of 
nature were referred to the control of sep- 
arate and supernatural beings. There 
was one god of the spring and another 
of the harvest, one of the fields, another of 
the flowers, and another still who made 
the fruit trees blossom into beauty. There 
were gods, too, of the city and the house- 
hold, of war and peace, of birth and 
death, of the lofty mountains, of the rest- 
less sea and the four great winds of hea- 
ven. In addition to all else, however, and 
much more significantly, the Romans, like 
the Greeks, deified the different virtues. 
Temples were built in honor of fortitude 
8 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
and temperance, patience and prudence, 
honor, generosity, and concord. In these 
shrines the people worshiped, and at al- 
tars such as these they offered sacrifices. 
Sometimes these temples were built by 
private citizens and given to the city, but 
again the state itself erected them to sig- 
nalize some great event or worthy under- 
taking. Thus Marius, we are told, after 
gaining "a stupendous victory over the 
Cimbrians and Teutons," came home 
to the Eternal City, celebrated his tri- 
umph, set up his trophies, and erected a 
temple to honor and courage. At another 
time the whole Senate dedicated an altar 
to friendship, "in respect of the great 
dearness of friendship" between Tiberius 
Caesar and Sejanus.* 

* Bacon, Moral and Historical Works, Essay -*Of 
Friendship." 

9 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
All this is but an indication of the 
great importance which everywhere has 
been attached to moral qualities of every 
kind. It may not always have Jbeen true 
that certain virtues were distinctly set 
apart as cardinal; but virtue itself has 
never failed of adequate and splendid 
recognition since the earliest days of 
ignorance and superstition. Within re- 
cent years, indeed, a new interest has 
been taken in ethical development, and 
fresh attention has been called to the 
value of superior moral characteristics. 
In our own country the existence of a 
national "Hero Fund" is alone an indi- 
cation of this interest; but a more con- 
vincing and impressive proof has recently 
been given of it in a foreign city. A most 
unusual and significant official publi- 
cation was lately to be seen on the out- 
10 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
side of one of the government buildings 
of Paris, and deserved much more atten- 
tion than many of the famous "sights" in 
that historic city. The document, which 
was a large one, ran as follows : — 

Republique Francaise I 
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE! 

Premier Arrondissement 
TABLEAU 

DES 

AcTES DE Courage et de Devouement accxjmplis par 
LEs Habitants du 1^« Arrondissement. 

A la trop grande publicite donnee par la presse 
aux malfaiteurs et a leurs exploits criminels dans 
notre cher Paris, n'est-il pas opportun d'opposer 
la probite, le devouement, et le courage dont nos 
citoyens donnent chaque jour des preuves si nom- 
breuses et si eclatantes ? Notre devoir n'est-il pas 
de mettre en lumiere les merites et les vertus que 
la modestie des honnetes gens se plait bien souvent 
a tenir dans I'ombre et dans Toubli ? 

C'est dans cette pensee que la municipalite 
11 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

du V^ Arrondissement prie les habitants de nos 
quartiers de lui signaler les belles et bonnes actions 
de toutes sortes dont ils seront temoins ou dont ils 
auront connaissance. 

EUe a egalement I'honneur de les informer qu'a 
partir du 1^^ Octobre les communications rela- 
tives a cette interessante "Chronique du bien" 
seront re9ues a la Mairie, enregistrees et affichees 
sur un tableau d'honneur afin que personne ne 
puisse les ignorer, et mentionees dans un proces- 
verbal detaille sur le Livre d'Or de TArrondisse- 
ment. 

Les jeunes gens y puiseront chaque jour un 
exemple fecond d'abnegation, de generosite, et 
d'heroisme ; et nos compatriotes de tous les ages 
seront heureux de constater que notre race vail- 
lante est toujours digne de son glorieux passe. 

Le Maire, 
V. Danoux. 

Paris, le 25 Septembre, 1902. 

That proclamation, as the date reveals, 
was originally made some five years since. 
And there beside the notice, in accordance 
12 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
with its terms, was a list of those whose 
names had been recorded in the Golden 
Book of honor, the nature of their worthy 
actions being briefly stated. 

Whatever may be thought or said in 
regard to the wisdom or the value of the 
scheme, we could hardly have a better 
demonstration of the fact that temples 
still are built, in one way or another, to 
the great and universal virtues, and that 
nothing is looked upon as more important, 
whether from the personal or from the 
public point of view, than the develop- 
ment of courage, self-denial, generosity, 
and loyalty to high ideals. 

There can therefore be no doubt what- 
ever in regard to the surpassing importance 
of great virtues, whether we confine our- 
selves to those which were long since set 
apart as cardinal, or extend the list to 
13 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

others. The only question that can pos- 
sibly arise relates to their constructive 
value, and to how they best may be de- 
veloped in our lives. 

Christianity from the very first has had 
little or nothing to do with any special 
virtues. "Love God and do as you please" 
was the moral rule laid down by Augus- 
tine, as a wise surveyor of the field of 
ethics has recently reminded us.* If a 
man but had the love of God in his heart, 
was the bold and clear assertion of this 
early Christian Father, nothing else was 
needed. He could not then go wrong; for 
all his impulses and inclinations would 
lead him in the paths of righteousness. 
And this, with hardly less distinctness, 
was the word of Jesus, from whom, of 
course, the thought or principle of Augus- 

* George H. Palmer, The Field of Ethics^ p. 142. 
14 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
tine was borrowed. Jesus arranged no 
schedule of the virtues, unless we class the 
Beatitudes as such. He never enumerated 
to his disciples a long array of things to 
be avoided in the world, nor yet a special 
list of qualities to be acquired. Indeed, 
there were only three great sins which he 
condemned, — cruelty, hypocrisy, and use- 
lessness, while almost all he had to say 
of the virtues could be summed up in 
the one word love, or pity. The love of 
man, however, was dependent in his eyes 
upon the love of God, or in one sense 
secondary to it. For the first and great 
commandment in the law was this: **Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind." 

If we adhere with closeness to the 
Christian method, therefore, there would 
15 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
seem at first but little need of taking 
thought of separate virtues. They all are 
rooted in one central principle, and all 
depend upon a single spiritual impulse or 
emotion. Let the love of God be quick- 
ened or awakened in us, and then it fol- 
lows as the day the night, and sweeping 
tides the soft compulsion of the distant 
moon, that courage, justice, self-control, 
and all the other noblest qualities of life 
will spring up well developed in our lives. 

Nor can any of us seriously doubt, I 
think, the actual truth of this contention. 
The Christian religion brought to man 
the deepest and the all-sufl5cient word in 
this respect. For love in very truth is the 
fulfilling of the law, and he who loves God, 
and his neighbor in God, has little need of 
moral quickening and instruction. 

While all of this is true, however, a 
16 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

deeper and more vital point remains to be 
considered. This love which means so 
much is neither universal nor instinctive. 
It needs to be developed, if not indeed 
awakened, in us. We often lack, that is, 
the very impulse which has such creative 
force; and, when we look for ways in 
which to strengthen or arouse it, we jBnd 
that nothing is a greater stimulus than 
human goodness in its highest reaches 
and sublime development. It is when we 
look upon the face of virtue, and catch 
its radiant beauty, that we are lifted up 
in consciousness of Power that is greater 
than the human. "The Universal," it 
has well been said, *'does not attract us 
until housed in an individual." Truth 
comes to us through personality; and this 
is more especially the case with moral 
truth. Man's goodness is the best sug- 
17 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

gestion and the strongest argument there 
is for a Being of eternal goodness. It is 
not by chance that every great reHgion in 
the world which has led men to a higher 
way of life, has had its source in some 
commanding human character. We often 
speak of Jesus, using words which he him- 
self employed, as "the way, the truth, 
and the life." We remember, too, the 
kindred declaration, "No man cometh 
to the Father but by me." And the un- 
derlying truth of both the statements is 
not limited to any single individual. The 
paths which lead to God are many; but 
none is more direct than that which leads 
through virtue. 

Moreover, it is when we struggle to be 

just and true, when we make some deep 

resolve to be more generous and helpful, 

and feel the power in us of some true and 

18 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
high example of a noble self-control,- — 
it is then that love springs up and takes 
possession of us, and we feel the great 
impelling force of Power in the world 
of which we only know in part the 
meaning. 

One of the most significant, and, after 
his early life, one of the most successful 
efforts for moral perfection was that which 
was tried by Benjamin Franklin. He 
wished, he wrote,^ "to live without com- 
mitting any fault at any time." And so he 
drew up for himself a list of virtues, which 
he was to school himself into embodying in 
his life. His scheme was to fix his whole 
attention on one virtue at a time, and 
when he had completely mastered that, 
to pass on to the next, and so on till his 
character was shaped, and his virtues 

* The AvioUography of Benjamin Frankliny chap. vi. 
19 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

thoroughly established. Moreover, the 
virtues were so arranged in order that, 
when he had acquired the first, the sec- 
ond would follow from it naturally. Thus 
the path of duty came to be continu- 
ally smoother and more easy, and the 
discipline of effort less severe. "I never 
arrived at the perfection I had been am- 
bitious of obtaining," he wrote years af- 
terwards, "but fell far short of it, yet I 
was, by the endeavour, a better and a 
happier man than I otherwise should have 
been, if I had not attempted it." WTiat 
others thought of the result may best be 
judged from the fact that when he went 
to France, on his most important mission, 
with all it meant for liberty at home, it 
was said that ''his virtues and renown 
negotiated for him." 

Then, too, there is this that must not 
20 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
be forgotten. Human character after all 
is a matter very largely of distinct and 
separate virtues. As there are some people 
whose ''morality is all sympathy," or tender 
pity, so there are those whose strength of 
character is all or mostly purity, or self- 
restraint, or calm endurance, or radiant 
cheerfulness, or conscious and austere up- 
rightness. In almost all our lives there 
is one particular quality, more marked 
than all the rest, which gives the tone and 
color to our moral nature. Even the best 
of men and women have not all the virtues 
in an equal portion. But by strengthen- 
ing and perfecting one, we often tend to 
strengthen and perfect the others. 

Such thoughts as these, however, have 

a merely technical importance. Here are 

these great and historic virtues, — these 

noble moral qualities which from one 

21 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
age to another have found a glorious em- 
bodiment, in varying degrees of fullness, 
in the lives of men and women, — and 
they need no outward temples to be erected 
in their honor, for in themselves they 
constitute a temple of the living God. In 
speaking of great virtues we are not deal- 
ing with a moral subject only, we are 
dealing with religion. We do not con- 
fine ourselves to thoughts of man alone; 
but we find ourselves inevitably brought 
to think of God! Though we move among 
the things of earth, the glories and the 
mystery of heaven arch and open round 
us! 

In the first place, it is true, as all of 
us know well, that religion ever tends to 
find its truest and its best embodiment in 
goodness. When faith attains its highest, 
and is given fullest utterance, it speaks 
22 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
the language of the virtues. "The progress 
of religion," said Emerson, "is steadily to 
its identity with morals. One pulsation 
of virtue can uplift and vivify a whole 
popedom of forms," and "In the sublimest 
flights of the soul rectitude is never sur- 
mounted, love is never outgrown." But 
religious faith is constantly in danger of 
wandering off and losing itself in rituals 
and creeds and ceremonies, or in doc- 
trines and beliefs and mere emotions, and 
the glow of empty, unembodied senti- 
ment. And always it becomes restored 
by an emphasis upon the virtues of 
life, and their all-suflScient power. When 
prayers and postures and the right in- 
terpretations of beliefs — all of which are 
good, and have their place — become 
considered more than qualities of soul and 
attributes of character, the Prophet speaks 
2S 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

again, and says, "Bring no more vain 
oblations, your incense is an abomination 
unto me; when ye spread forth your hands 
I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when 
ye make many prayers, I will not hear. 
Wash you, and make you clean; put away 
the evil of your doings from before mine 
eyes. Cease to do evil, and learn to do 
well. For what doth the Lord require of 
thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and 
walk humbly with thy God." That is to 
say, the highest point in all religions which 
the world has known, or ever can arrive 
at, is the point of glad and reverent obedi- 
ence to the Lord's commands. 

If that is the jfirst great truth in regard 
to virtue as a temple, the second is like 
it, only grander, namely this: that, as 
religion tends forever in its progress to 
identity with virtue, so the life of virtue 
24 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

ever acts to lift and exalt us till we breathe 
at last the higher and more stimulating 
atmosphere of faith itself. Religion, said 
Matthew Arnold, in words which often 
have been quoted, — '* Religion is morality 
touched with emotion." And the special 
emotion that he had in mind, no doubt, 
was that which comes from the thought 
of God. Religion, therefore, we may bet- 
ter say, is the life of goodness conscious 
of its source; it is the sentiment of virtue 
seen and felt against the background of 
eternal law. 

However that may be, it is surely true, 
as for all time has been clearly and rev- 
erently pointed out,^ that "a secret, sweet, 
and overpowering beauty appears to man 
when his mind and heart open to the sen- 
timent of virtue. Then he is instructed 

^ Emerson, Works, vol. i, pp. 120, 121. 
25 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
in what is above him. He learns that his 
being is without bound, that to the good, 
to the perfect, he is born, low as he now 
lies in evil and weakness. That which he 
venerates is still his own, though he has 
not realized it yet. He ought. He knows 
the sense of that grand word, though his 
analysis fails to render an account of it. 
. . . The sentiment of virtue is a rev- 
erence and delight in the presence of 
certain divine laws." But "these laws re- 
fuse to be adequately stated, . . . they 
elude our persevering thought." 

The life of virtue, that is to say, does not 
find fulfillment in itself alone. It does not 
set all questionings at rest; but rather 
rouses in us wonder and amazement. 
Virtue is an open window in the human 
soul; and when we go to it, and look out, 
the light that falls upon us is a light that 
26 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

comes from central sun and clustered 

constellations. The moral law forever 

deals in possibilities, — the possibilities 

that lie within us as well as those which 

lie without. The touch of duty wakes the 

sleeping, unused powers in the human 

soul, and the soul itself in going forth to 

action lifts up an astonished face and asks 

the whence of these commands. The 

strength to do in life is attended often by 

a wonder as to how the strength is given. 

A law suggests a law-giver, and when we 

yield ourselves obedient we often feel the 

presence of a higher Will. Then only 

does the life of duty find completion, and 

the soul attain its rest. 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine." 

The life of virtue, therefore, is not a 
mighty, independent continent in life's 

27 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

great world, — unrelated and sufficient 
in itself, with adequate resources for the 
meeting of all needs. It rather is a little 
island, as a famous writer has suggested,* 
and the tides and waves of the eternal 
deep forever beat upon its shores. The 
single virtues in their full development 
often bring to man a sense of things which 
still are unattained, and he longs for 
fuller knowledge. Through them he climbs 
up till he feels the airs of heaven blowing 
o'er him, and looks far ofiF to where the 
line of sea and sky is one. We begin by 
cultivating courage, purity, or magnanim- 
ity, or a noble self-control. We see their 
rich embodiment in others. And, lo! as 
we admire and pursue, we find new vistas 
of life's glory opening out before us, and 

* James Martineau, A Study of Religion, vol. i, 
p. 23. 

28 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
the human quality becomes an attribute 
of the divine. 

It was long ago, as we have seen, that 
certain virtues in this world were looked 
upon and spoken of as cardinal. They 
were those which served, that is, as hinges 
in the life of goodness. But the hinges 
even more are those on which the mighty 
door of religious trust and spiritual faith 
is swung. As the door is opened, and we 
move in silence onward, and enter the 
great space which lies beyond, we find 
ourselves within the mystery and silence 
of a stately temple. Beyond the portal, 
and beneath the shadow of the giant 
arches, we look to where the lights are 
burning dimly, and the incense floats 
aloft. It is the holy of holies: the high 
altar of religious faith, and before it we 
have bent the knee. 
29 



II 



< 



Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of mj God. — Revelation, iii, 12. 

K one man conquer in battle a thousand times a 
thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the 
greatest of conquerors. — Buddha's Dhammapada, or 
Path of Virtue, viii, 103. 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

Having taken thought of the temple of 
virtue we go on to consider one of the 
columns or pillars in the temple by which 
the very life of goodness is supported and 
adorned. The quality that I have chosen 
first, because of its central position and 
its great importance, is the one which is 
hinted at in a verse from the book of 
Revelation: "Him that overcometh will I 
make a pillar in the temple of my God." 
And to the question, Overcometh what.^^ 
we may find the answer in a saying of the 
Buddha's, that he who ''conquers himself 
is the greatest of all conquerors." "For 
not even a god," the ancient prophet goes 
on to declare, "could change into defeat 
the victory of a man who has vanquished 
33 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
himself, and always lives under re- 
straint." 

Among the four great virtues which 
were early looked upon as cardinal, there 
was none on which more constant em- 
phasis was laid than that of temperance. 
Temperance, however, is only one ex- 
pression of the greater fact or quality of 
self-control. In former times the two 
terms were used more or less interchange- 
ably. By temperance was meant the gen- 
eral control of the lower impulses, or 
powers, by the higher. It signified that 
"force of will" by which the various and 
conflicting instincts and desires of the 
human creature were "kept in their own 
places, and compelled to do their proper 
work." Of recent years, however, the 
term has come to have a distinctly nar- 
rower meaning. The exigencies of a great 
34 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
reform have led us to think of the "tem- 
perate" person as the one who controls 
successfully one single appetite alone. 
And, virtuous though this may be, and 
needing still to be given emphasis, it is 
rather of the larger, more inclusive quality 
that we all may think with greatest help- 
fulness and value. It is he who overcomes 
his lower self as a whole, and exercises 
general and far-reaching self-control, who 
is made a pillar in the temple of his God. 

Now, if the first great word of Greek 
philosophy was the word of Socrates, 
"Man, know thyself!" the second was the 
word of Plato, "Man, control thyself!" 
The human soul, said Plato, in one of his 
most famous passages, "is divided into 
three parts, two of them resembling horses, 
or winged steeds, and the third a chario- 
teer." And of these horses which draw the 
35 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
chariot of the soul, one, he found, was 
"generous, and of generous breed," and 
ever ready to mount upward, and to bear 
life through a bright and heavenly course. 
But the other was of opposite tendencies, 
and plunged persistently downward, wish- 
ing forever to descend. And hence it fol- 
lowed that the driving of the chariot of 
life was in no sense an easy and agree- 
able task. "By reason of awkwardness, 
or lack of having life's horses well in 
hand, many souls are marred and ruined, 
and many go away without being blessed 
by admission to the spectacle of truth." 

From those far days to these there has 
never been the slightest question of the 
primary importance and the underlying 
necessity in life of exercising self-control. 
When Benjamin Franklin drew up for 
himself his scheme of "Moral Perfec- 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

tion," as he called it, to which a refer- 
ence already has been made, he made a 
list of thirteen virtues which he hoped 
to incorporate in his character. That he 
failed to attain to some of these virtues, he 
told the world with his native honesty and 
frankness; but such failure does not of 
necessity detract from the interest and 
value of the great attempt. However that 
may be, it is significant and helpful to 
remember that the virtue Franklin set 
down first as most important and under- 
lying all the rest, while also leading up 
to them, was temperance. "Temperance 
is first," he wrote,* "as it tends to procure 
that coolness and clearness of head which 
are so necessary where constant vigilance 
is to be kept up, and a guard maintained 
against the unremitting attraction of 

* Aviobiography, chapter vi. 
37 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
ancient habits and the force of perpetual 
temptation." 

And surely all of us, no matter what our 
special characters may be, nor what our 
dispositions, weaknesses, temptations, if 
we cast but a casual and hasty glance 
within, are obliged to say the same. Yes, 
temperance, or self-control, is first and 
most important. Before we can achieve 
anything, become anything, be anything 
that is really best and worthiest, we must 
learn the secret, and work out the dis- 
cipline and power of a firm and steady 
rulership within ourselves. 

Nor is this an easy or a short-lived task. 
Few of us have gone far on life's voyage 
in this ship of the human soul before we 
learn the turbulent and pirate nature of 
the crew we have to deal with.* Many 

* W. E. C. Newbolt, The Cardinal ViHues, page 15. 
38 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

appetites and impulses and tendencies are 
with us possibly which sailed in previous 
generations with those who gave them too 
great license. No sooner, therefore, have 
we left the quiet harbor of our early youth, 
and begun to feel the breezes and the bil- 
lows of the world's great deep, than these 
impulses and passions seek to wrest away 
the office of command, and to gain a per- 
manent control. And often there is nothing 
we can do but nail the hatches firmly 
down, and keep these riotous desires be- 
low the decks, while we stand securely at 
the wheel, in days of calm and nights of 
storm, our eye upon the needle of God's 
clear commands. What many of these 
instincts and desires are, we all know 
well, and we need not name them in detail. 
But this stands written for us clearly in the 
long and varied history of human naviga- 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
tion : that nothing is the cause of so much 
wreckage and disaster on the sea of life as 
the failure to control one's impulses and 
keep them in their proper place. An un- 
ruly temper, a vindictive spirit, unbridled 
jealousy, a lust of power or of pleasure, 
or of selfish gain which is left unleashed or 
made more dangerous by self-indulgence, 
— these are the things that in all the ages 
of the world have led to sudden wreck of 
reputation, to outward failure and disaster. 
In some unguarded moment the deed is 
done, the word is spoken, the rash and 
foolish impulse is permitted to prevail, 
which deprives us of the confidence of 
others, which causes us to lose our friends, 
which undoes the work of years. Because 
we have not conquered ourselves, we are 
conquered and humiliated by a portion 
only of our inmost natures, and the 
40 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

whole must pay the penalty inflicted by 
a part. 

An important point to think of, though, 
is this, — that what we call the lower im- 
pulses and tendencies of life are not the 
only ones which need to be restrained and 
subjected to a careful rule. There are 
qualities and attributes like ambition and 
enthusiasm and a conscious pride, which 
are helpful and of value in their place, but 
which may easily exceed all proper bounds, 
and lead life on to failure and mishap. 
The very craving to succeed and win, 
which helps a man attain positions of great 
trust and power, may also lead him on too 
fast and far, until the very impulse which 
at first exalted him now drags him down 
to ruin and disaster. Thus it was in the 
case of such mighty world-conquerors as 
Alexander and Napoleon. The self-same 
41 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

impulses and mental qualities which con- 
tributed at first to their successes, because 
allowed to reach too far and exceed all 
reasonable bounds at length entailed their 
failure and their fall. Had those consum- 
mate victors exercised a more complete 
command over themselves, they would 
have held the kingdoms of the world 
much longer underneath their feet. 

This principle is even true of the 
tenderest and fairest desires in the garden 
of the heart and soul. If these flowers are 
not tended constantly and kept in careful 
limits, they speedily run wild, and incline 
to coarseness or to weak and feeble growth. 
Thus sentiment runs off into all the folly 
and the feebleness of sentimentality, and 
sympathy, when left without the guiding 
hand of reason, becomes a helpless, in- 
effective impulse, and even goodness loses 
42 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

half its power to attract and influence. 
This law of life, in other words, is written 
for us everywhere, — that in order, sym- 
metry, and right proportion, and a careful, 
just arrangement and restraint of life, 
there is greatest power to be found, as well 
as safety to be gained. 

Moreover, this is true, I think : that the 
area, — if I may call it that, — the area 
of self-control is extending all the time. 
The kingdom of selfhood is very happily, 
under ordinary conditions, a less unruly 
kingdom nowadays than ever in the past. 
The discipline of the ages has begun to 
tell. We have fewer violent and turbulent 
passions to hold in subjection to the will 
than rose rebellious in the days of old. 
But, on the other hand, the kingdom if 
more peaceful is much larger, and calls 
for greater care if we would rule it well. 
43 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
Take the leisure, take the growing luxu- 
ries, take the abundant opportunities, take 
the enormous wealth, take the striking 
increase in the number of the avenues of 
pleasure and diversion in these modem 
days, and then take such things as social 
and political and religious freedom, and 
what are they all, if not, besides so many 
blessings when used aright and well, so 
many things to be controlled, to be brought 
into right and definite subjection to the 
individual will and conscience ? And what 
is the trouble with many people at the 
present time? What is the cause of the 
idle, listless, useless, wasteful lives they 
feebly spend, if not distinctly this, — that 
they do not control, but are held in sub- 
jection by, some one or many of these 
modern and abundant possibilities and 
opportunities? They have not earned 
44 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
them; in many cases they do not deserve 
them, and in others still they foolishly 
misuse and waste them. 

We remember the story of the youthful 
Phaethon, how he begged to be allowed 
to drive across the sky his father's chariot 
of the sun. But the giant horses, which 
the father held in firm control, the young 
and inexperienced boy was utterly in- 
capable of guiding. He could not hold 
them to their appointed course. The youth 
himself was hurled off to destruction, and 
the world was made to sulBFer by his wild 
career. And what is that but a graphic 
picture of much which goes on in the 
modern world each year, with its golden 
chariots of princely fortunes ? The father, 
who has slowly made his fortune, and 
not without his losses, possibly, and hard- 
ships and discouragements, understands 
45 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

its value, and controls it with a wise and 
generous use. But the son, who takes in 
confidence the reins, is often hurried from 
the path of usefulness and honor, and 
drawn by reason of his lack of self-control 
into dangerous and vicious ways. 

I spoke a moment since, however, of 
the extended area of selfhood which needs 
to be subjected to a careful and consistent 
system of control. We may wisely go on, 
therefore, to elaborate that thought, and 
give it practical bearing on the needs of 
daily life. For the most part, we think of 
self-control as having to do with little else 
than the stronger and more vehement 
impulses of human nature, with such 
things as I have spoken of, or hinted at, 
— with anger, lust, ambition, cruel and 
vindictive feelings. And this, of course, is 
well. But I wish to point out some of its 
46 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

deeper and more subtle bearings. There 
are outlying and partially deserted districts 
in the natures of us all, which need to 
be included in the limits of the kingdom 
and to share the blessings of both law 
and order. 

First of all, there is the district in the 
mysterious land of selfhood that is oc- 
cupied by our moods. It appears to me 
that over this each one of us may exercise 
a useful, if not an easy, system of control. 
All of us, that is to say, have our alternat- 
ing periods of sunshine and of storm, of 
cheerfulness and depression, of energy and 
relaxation, of faith and doubt, of hope and 
despair, of confidence and weak uncer- 
tainty. Now we are lifted into conscious 
joy and throbbing hope; but again we 
feel ourselves forlorn and desolate. Life 
to-day appears a privilege and radiant 
47 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
opportunity for usefulness: to-morrow we 
seriously wonder if anything is really much 
worth while. 

So there are times when our work, our 
duties, our drudgeries even, are done 
easily and gladly. Instead of finding them 
burdensome we rejoice in the various 
cares and responsibilities which fill the 
hours of each day so full. But then, again, 
deep gloom oppresses us, and we can 
neither seem to do nor be our best. And 
all such moods are natural. They come 
upon nearly all of us. Very few people 
can hope to live in such divinely ordered 
latitudes of soul that their sky is always 
clear. We cannot, therefore, put an abso- 
lute end to these various and changeable 
conditions. But we can and should con- 
trol them. Little by little we may learn 
by very commonplace experience that the 
48 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
gloom and the depression need not cause 
us genuine despair. However dark the 
curtain of the cloud may hang, the blue 
sky is behind it still. Night falls, and yet 
the stars shine out. 

All of us may work out for ourselves a 
very practical and helpful philosophy in 
this respect, and we ought to work it out, 
and discipline ourselves to live by it as 
well. When the soul is feeble to believe; 
when we feel ourselves indifferent to the 
good and true; when things seem bur- 
densome, and life appears a giant load 
of care, — it is possible to remind our- 
selves that we have been along that very 
road before, and have watched the leaden 
darkness of those same great clouds, and 
yet beyond them we have come out into 
sunlight and have been refreshed. We 
must have our discouragements, indeed; 
49 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
but we need not, therefore, be utterly 
cast down. We may despond, but we 
need not feel despair. 

Much the same may be said of that 
neighboring territory of the mind which 
belongs to worry. We all have times of 
apprehending possible ills. We stand in 
dread of things which never happen. We 
picture to ourselves the very worst. We 
"borrow trouble," as the saying is, and 
the rate of interest we pay is very high. 

Now we cannot altogether free the mind 
from tendencies like these. They are 
part of the general forward-looking powers 
God has given us, and they have decided 
use when properly employed. We can 
control them, though; and we ought to 
learn to do so with a fair amount of true 
success. We should be men enough, or 
women enough, to exercise a careful 
50 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 

supervision over thoughts and fears, and 
idle, needless apprehensions. If we have 
not learned to overcome anxieties, which 
spring up freely just because they have 
no depth of soil, even as we overcome 
base impulses and low desires, we have 
not learned a chief among the earliest 
lessons of all life. 

Then, too, in addition to the worries 
and the moods of life, there is the larger 
and the darker realm of grief and sorrow. 
We cannot hope, of course, to free our 
minds of sadness. There are many things 
which come inevitably to us all, and cause 
us to experience trouble and affliction. 
In proportion as we love, we are often 
called upon to grieve, and the depth of 
feeling and the height to which our hopes 
ascend extend the regions in our lives 
which become exposed to sorrows and to 
51 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
disappointment. But what we cannot 
banish or bar out, we can come, at least 
in large part, to control. We need not 
weakly yield ourselves nor give way ut- 
terly to sorrows, no matter what their 
crushing force may be. There is no more 
noble mastery of self than that which 
meets with trust and self-contained re- 
pose the hardships and the heavy losses 
of the world. 

Such is the breadth, and such, in some 
sense, is the height of true and worthy 
self-control. Whoso is really master of 
himself, the conqueror and king of inner 
impulse and of disposition, becomes ex- 
alted, and yet truly humble; bound, and 
yet forever free; restrained, and yet dis- 
tinctly active. And, as this is the first 
necessity at life's beginning, so it is the 
last attainment that we all should strive 
52 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
to bring about in fullness. It is the sub- 
tle girdle which alone makes possible 
the simplest virtues and redeems the life 
from utter lawlessness; and it is the gleam- 
ing band of spiritual light which crowns 
the highest efforts of all those who yield 
neither to outward failure nor to inner 
foe. 

A self-control like this, however, is a 
far and high ideal which is not to be at- 
tained at once nor reached with ease. 
With most of us the way must be a long 
one, and the rate of progress slow. In the 
"Divine Comedy," when Virgil left Dante 
on the outer circle of the earthly paradise, 
he bade him use henceforth his own will 
and be master of his own actions. " Where- 
fore," he said, "thee over thyself I crown 
and mitre."* But before that blessed end 

* Purgatorio, canto xxviii. 
53 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
was reached there had been the wander- 
ing and the painful passage through the 
regions of despair and those of purging 
pain and trial. 

With self-control, however, when we 
gain it for ourselves to any full degree, cer- 
tain qualities become our portion, which 
lend to life exceeding dignity and richness. 
The first of these is moral quietness or 
peace. Not the selfish and the artificial 
peace that comes from solitude and calm 
retirement from troubles and contentions, 
but that peace of mind which is freed 
from self-reproaches and regrets. For 
many of us in this world are anxious and 
disturbed by reason of the blunders we 
have made, the wrongs we have com- 
mitted, the injustice we have done in some 
impetuous moment when we forgot our- 
selves, or yielded to the mood of self- 
54 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
ishness or indolence that passed across 
our minds. But those who once have 
conquered well themselves are least dis- 
turbed in ways like these. The balance 
of their lives does much to make their 
progress smooth. 

And if peace is the first thing that is 
born of self-control, the second thing is 
power. Not the power which is gathered 
up in selfish might, and strength to do as 
one desires; but the power which goes 
forth to influence and help. No man is 
fitted to command others who does not 
first command and rule himself; and, as a 
matter of daily knowledge, no one actually 
does command respect or become a strong 
example in the way of virtue until he 
exercises self-control. But, on the other 
hand, how true it is that we yield ourselves 
obedient, in a greater or a less degree, to 
55 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
those who manifestly are the quiet, restful 
masters of themselves ! Who are they that 
shame us for our weaknesses, short com- 
ings, and defects ? that fill us with a great 
desire and impetuous longing to put temp- 
tations underneath our feet and rise su- 
perior to idle hopes and earth-born fears ? 
Who, if not the men and women who have 
fought the battle with themselves, and con- 
quered; who have overcome, and stand as 
pillars of endurance, loyalty, and patience 
in the mighty temple of the restless world. 
There is nothing in the realm of virtue 
more contagious than the living evidence 
of vigor exercised in calm restraint, and 
energy that is held subservient to moral 
purpose and endeavor. 

And then to peace and power must be 
added firmness, — the capacity to per- 
sist in the things we undertake, and to 
56 



THE PILLAR OF SELF-CONTROL 
stand unmoved and resolute in defense of 
what is right. A great deal of the insta- 
bility of life, with its weak, ephemeral, and 
abortive efforts after what is good and 
worthy, is due to the fact that people yield 
themselves to merely passing impulses. 
They are carried away by excess of sud- 
den feeling, and later on they have to 
face about, and beat a quick retreat. The 
person who is king and ruler over self, 
however, is not the easy prey of wander- 
ing emotions and desires. He understands 
himself, and what he does he does with 
resolution and conviction, and when he 
stands he is erect and firm. 

To these great qualities one other must 
be added, — that of beauty; for when 
they are combined in human character 
they give an impression of wholeness and 
of self-contained completeness. The ele- 
57 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
ment of harmony, however, of symmetry, 
of fair and full proportion, is an under- 
lying element in all the genuine beauty 
of the world. And greater, possibly, than 
the splendor of courage, and the chaste 
simplicity of justice, and the tender love- 
liness of sympathy, is the rounded grace 
and full perfection of a free and restful 
self-control. 

Peace and power, firmness and beauty, 
therefore, — these are the impressive fea- 
tures in the life of the greatest of all 
conquerors, who has triumphed over self. 
These are the elements of victory that 
adorn the life of one who, having over- 
come, is made a pillar in the temple of our 
God. 



m 



And thus this man died, leaving his death for an 
example of a noble courage, and a memorial of virtue, 
not only unto young men, but unto all his nation. — 
2 Maccabees, vi, 31. 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

The pillar of courage holds an important 
and conspicuous place in the temple of 
virtue. For virtue, manhood, courage, 
were originally all one word, and stood 
for the same great quality in human life. 
That is to say, our word virtue is de- 
rived from the Latin vir, and the Aryan 
wira, the meaning of which is a man or 
hero. In other words, among the ancient 
Romans, as among the early peoples gen- 
erally, to be a man meant being brave, 
and hardy, and heroic. 

Courage, therefore, is the oldest of the 
virtues. It is regal in its ancestry, what- 
ever may be said regarding its intrinsic 
worth. It was the first of all the moral 
qualities to be widely recognized and defi- 
61 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
nitely honored. Before the human race 
had learned the value of honesty, or the 
power of justice, or the dignity of pru- 
dence, and long before people had come 
to see the beauty of sympathy, of kind- 
ness, or of self-control, the importance 
of manliness was clearly understood, and 
courage was distinctly honored and ex- 
alted. It has the pulse-beat of battle in 
it, and the thrill of patriotic effort, and 
the pathos of self-sacrifice. It is clothed 
in all the glory of the ancient Sagas, and it 
marches down the centuries to the sound- 
ing music of the epics of all lands. When 
we think of it we think of men who have 
dared all for the right, and endured all for 
the true, and of women who "received 
their dead by a resurrection, and were 
tortured, not accepting their deliverance." 
By courage, perhaps, as much as by the 
62 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

quality of faith, *'the elders obtained a 
good report." For what shall we say "of 
Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, 
and of Jephtha; of David also, and 
Samuel, and of the prophets?" Surely 
these were all courageous men. Moreover, 
the time would fail us, as it failed the 
early Christian writer, if we undertook 
to tell of those who by reason of their 
glowing courage "subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
the sword, out of weakness were made 
strong, waxed valiant in the fight, turned 
to flight the armies of the aliens." The 
history of the human race might almost 
be called a history of courage. At least, 
without this quality no continents would 
ever have been tamed, no oceans crossed, 
63 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
no social changes or political reforms 
suggested or secured. It follows, there- 
fore, that our admiration of courage, and 
the natural and instinctive love we feel 
for brave and heroic deeds, have been 
inherited directly from the most distant 
of our sturdy though barbaric ancestors. 
The disposition at the present time 
undoubtedly exists, however, and of re- 
cent years it has been developed and en- 
couraged, to minimize the excellence of 
courage, and to throw suspicion on its 
moral value. It is spoken of somewhat 
lightly, on occasions, in an age which is 
learning happily to disapprove of war, 
and when one influence after another is 
being brought beneath the sway of con- 
science and the spiritual life. Not long 
ago I spoke to a well-known clergyman 
about a sermon he had lately preached 
64 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
with peculiar boldness and directness on 
some public topic of importance. I said 
to him, *'It was a very courageous 
utterance." "Oh," he answered, with a 
laugh, ''courage is the cheapest of the 
virtues." And he was one perhaps who 
ought to know, for he never seems to 
understand the meaning of the thing 
called fear. 

Still more pronounced in this respect 
was the sentiment of Channing, who like- 
wise had the courage of his great con- 
victions, and a vast amount to spare be- 
sides. Yet courage to this famous prophet, 
who boldly spoke the most unwelcome 
truths, and at least on one occasion calmly 
faced the fury of a surging mob, — cour- 
age seemed a most uncertain trait of 
character, and scarcely worthy to be 
classed among the virtues. In his famous 
65 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
sermon upon "War" * he declared it "a 
very doubtful quality, springing from 
very different sources, and possessing a 
corresponding variety of character. Cour- 
age," he said, "sometimes results from 
mental weakness . . . and still more fre- 
quently springs from physical tempera- 
ment, from a rigid fibre and iron nerves, 
and deserves as little praise as the pro- 
portion of the form or the beauty of the 
countenance. . . . Every passion which is 
strong enough to overcome the passion 
of fear, and to exclude by its vehemence 
the idea of danger, communicates at least 
a temporary courage. Thus revenge, 
when it burns with great fury, gives a 
terrible energy to the mind, and has 
sometimes impelled men to meet certain 

^ W. E. Channing, Worksy one-volume edition, pp. 
650, 658. 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
death that they might inflict the same 
fate on an enemy. You see, therefore," 
was the word of Channing, ''the doubtful 
nature of courage. It is often associated 
with the worst vices. The most wonder- 
ful examples of it may be found in the 
history of pirates and robbers. . . . In- 
deed," this prophet and moral teacher went 
on to declare, ''though courage is of worth, 
and ought to be prized, sought, and 
cherished, it is not of itself virtuous. It 
is an aid to virtue. All great enterprises 
demand it, and without it virtue cannot 
rise into magnanimity." But "considered 
in itself, or without reference to its origin 
and motives, and regarded in its common 
manifestations, it is not a virtue, is not 
moral excellence, and the disposition to 
exalt it above the spirit of Christianity 
is one of the most ruinous delusions 
67 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
which have been transmitted to us from 
barbarous times." 

Now, interesting as all this is, more 
especially when account is taken of its 
source, it is yet in some sense meretri- 
cious and mistaken. To a certain extent 
we might argue thus in regard to nearly 
all the virtues. It is not necessary to be 
honest and unselfish in order to act at 
times with a noble courage, any more 
than it is necessary to be pure and tem- 
perate before we can be loving and tender. 
The fact that the generous person is some- 
times weak, and occasionally self-com- 
placent, does not justify us in declaring 
that generosity is not a lovely and en- 
nobling moral grace. It is a well-known 
and long-established fact, which is given 
illustration all around us every day, that 
the vicious and degraded people of the 
68 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

world assist each other in times of trial 
and misfortune to an extent of actual 
self-sacrifice that respectable and upright 
people are seldom seen to do in their 
unselfishness and sympathy. Yet that 
does not discredit helpfulness, nor dimin- 
ish in the least its moral and spiritual 
value. Courage, therefore, for the simple 
reason that it often lives in company with 
doubtful and ignoble traits, can hardly 
be, I think, on that account, denied a 
place among the virtues. 

And yet, in saying this, we have not 
fully answered the objections that were 
raised. We are still in a dilemma. For 
here, upon the one hand, is a moral 
teacher telling us that courage is the 
cheapest of the virtues; and there, upon 
the other, is a greater and more famous 
teacher saying that to be courageous in 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
the ordinary sense is not virtuous at all. 
What, then, is the meaning of these stric- 
tures? And what the actual moral value 
of this mighty and heroic quality of life ? 
We must begin, I think, by recognizing 
that there are various gradations, and 
widely separated phases, in the manifes- 
tations of this familiar and historic at- 
tribute. Courage is not always of the same 
kind. Moreover it differs very particularly 
from the other virtues in not being in- 
herently or necessarily worthy, or beau- 
tiful, or even of moral value. *'If courage 
were intrinsically virtuous," says a writer, 
"we should have to call a man good be- 
cause he met a tiger unflinchingly when 
he was simply engaged in sport; whereas 
no one would think such an act had 
any moral quality." * Thus, too, there is 

^ Quoted by S. E. Mezes, Ethics, p. 216. 
70 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
a courage which is dull and blind and 
stupid, which exists because dangers are 
not clearly seen when they exist, or are 
underestimated when they are really very 
great. And in this there is nothing either 
to be praised or imitated. God gives us 
senses that we may see and understand, 
and among other things that we may rec- 
ognize and take account of dangers. The 
person who is unintelligent in this respect, 
who does not know enough to be afraid 
at times, is not courageous, he is reckless. 
The reckless person, therefore, stands at 
one end of the scale, with the coward at 
the other. Cowardice often comes from 
picturing dangers where they do not 
really exist, or from thinking of them as 
greater than they actually are : while reck- 
lessness is born of an incapacity to reckon 
or to heed them when they are really great. 
71 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
Much the same must be said, too, of a 
courage that is clearly useless, and which 
serves no definite or worthy end. We 
have a special word for this which is most 
expressive. The person who throws away 
his life, or puts it in serious jeopardy out 
of curiosity, or love of excitement, or mere 
bravado, is not courageous, he is fool- 
hardy. That is to say, he is unintelligent 
and injudicious. 

A recent writer in one of our magazines 
gave an historic instance of a case of this 
sort. He called it an example of "^Yasted 
Courage." It is an incident in the career 
of William Prince of Orange, afterwards 
King WiUiam III of England, one of the 
ablest generals of his time and a man of 
high personal courage. I will quote what 
the writer says : ^ 

^ The Outlook, Aug. 3, 1901. 

72 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
"On one occasion on a battlefield in 
Flanders when, under a heavy fire of 
bullets, [William] was giving orders to the 
members of his staff, he discovered near 
him the deputy governor of the Bank of 
England, drawn to the place by mere 
curiosity. The king said to him sharply, 
'Sir, you ought not to run these haz- 
ards ; you are not a soldier, — you are 
of no use to us here.' *I run no more 
hazard than your majesty,' the man 
answered. *Not so,' said the king; 'I am 
here where it is my duty to be, and I 
may without presumption commit my life 
to God's keeping, but you — ' The sen- 
tence was left incomplete because the 
man fell dead at the king's feet. It was 
a foolish courage and it cost a life. No 
good end was served; the man gambled 
with that which did not belong to him 
73 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

and lost it by a throw of the iron dice 
of war." 

Now had William himself been shot 
there his death would have been heroic, 
— an evidence of splendid courage and 
devotion; but, as it was, mere recklessness 
had been displayed, and the banker's 
death was an example neither of courage 
nor of virtue. 

While courage, therefore, may exist in 
one sense, but in less degree, in those 
who recognize no dangers, and thus feel 
no fears, it is noble and admirable only 
when dangers are perceived and fears 
controlled; and it is a virtue only when 
they are encountered and controlled in a 
worthy cause, with some high and good 
intent. 

But we need not linger over thoughts 
like these. The value of courage may be 
74 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

clearly perceived by comparing it with 
cowardice. For, while cowardice may 
often render a whole life and character 
contemptible, robbing almost every other 
virtue of its power and beauty, courage 
is a glowing and resplendent mantle. It 
sometimes wraps the entire life around, 
and redeems in glory what is even weak 
and faulty. If a person is courageous, if 
he gives his life for a noble cause, if he 
counts as nothing ease and happiness and 
love, and flings them all into the balance 
as he bravely does his duty, we forgive 
him many failings and shortcomings for 
the sake of his one great virtue. Cour- 
age, therefore, is like charity in this re- 
spect, — that it often covers a multitude 
of sins. 

There are three things that we may go 
on to consider. First, there is the develop- 
75 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

ment and discipline in life of this shining 
and conspicuous quality. Second, there 
is the field of life in which it best, and 
with greatest usefulness, may be dis- 
played; and third, there is the secret of 
its highest reaches and sublimest mani- 
festations. 

1. So far as the development of courage 
is concerned it is clear enough, when once 
we view the matter properly, that quite 
as much as in the case of any of the virtues, 
here is a quality to be cultivated, and 
oftentimes acquired. We speak of natu- 
ral courage, to be sure, more frequently 
perhaps than we speak of natural hon- 
esty or kindness; but, on the other hand, 
the greatest courage in the world is not 
of this easy and unconscious kind. The 
greatest and most worthy courage does not 
consist in the absence of fears; it comes 
76 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
from the control of fears. The Duke of 
Wellington once said that ''men of natu- 
ral courage did not make the best soldiers ; 
but those who, shrinking from the con- 
flict, did not flinch because their sense of 
duty held them to the task." ^ And this 
is borne out by the testimony of indi- 
vidual men whom people have admired 
for their bravery. They often have con- 
fessed with frankness in their later years 
that they were weak, and almost over- 
come with fear, when first they found 
themselves brought face to face with mor- 
tal peril. 

Moreover, nothing in the world, per- 
haps, is a matter of discipline and habit 
more than courage. People are brave in 
facing dangers they have grown accus- 

^ Quoted by J. W. Chadwick, William Ellery Chan- 
ning, p. 293. 

77 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
tomed to, and which they have trained 
the will to meet; but the most courageous 
men have wavered, and been known to 
pale, before a peril which was new and 
strange to them. Oliver Cromwell was 
the most unflinching, possibly, of all the 
famous Ironsides he led so often into 
battle. Yet this great man, who had been 
so valiant to withstand the visible foe, 
trembled weakly at the thought of the 
assassin's knife. He was not accustomed 
to a danger that he could not see. 

A curious case of a similar nature 
was that of Admiral Nelson. Upon the 
cruiser's deck he was utterly intrepid, 
and no danger could upset him. But 
Nelson once was taken by a friend to 
drive along the peaceful country lanes 
of England, and the freshness of the 
horses so alarmed him that he could 
78 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
not suppress his fears. He begged to be 
set down, frankly confessing his alarm, 
and, refusing all assurances of safety, he 
insisted on walking the entire distance 
home. 

This is a phase of life which has been 
clearly recognized since early times. Few 
men, for instance, faced death so con- 
stantly as the gladiators in the ancient 
arenas. They were looked upon as the 
bravest of the brave, and when death 
came their way they met their fate with- 
out a groan upon the gleaming sands 
their blood had reddened. In the days 
of degenerate Rome the experiment was 
made of using these gladiators in the army. 
They were enrolled in the legions, and 
sent to the front, where it was thought 
that they would serve with signal valor. 
To the surprise of all, however, they were 
79 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
ineffective in the ranks, and proved no 
match in courage for the ordinary sol- 
dier.^ 

And so it is, no less, in the round of the 
nobler and more peaceful pursuits of the 
present time. The sailor who is cheerful 
and smiling in the midst of the storm 
at sea, the engineer who runs his train 
through the gloom and darkness of the 
heavy night, might tremble at the thought 
of descending with the miner into the 
grim depths of the silent earth, or hesitate 
to venture with the Alpine climber up the 
sheer sides of the lofty Matterhorn or 
Monte Rosa. And it would not of necessity 
be cowardly to do so. The miner, on the 
other hand, who had never been to sea, 
might blanch before the tumult of the 
waters, while the mountaineer, with no 

* W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, p. 250. 
80 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
experience of railways, might pray in ter- 
ror to be set down from the *' through ex- 
press" and given the security of native 
cliffs and peaks. 

Courage, therefore, is *'a habit of the 
will." It is a thing that often must be 
learned and acquired slowly as we grow 
accustomed to the hazardous and gain 
the right and full control of fears. Among 
the many things that are remembered 
still of Abraham Lincoln is the leniency 
he practiced during the civil war with 
cases of cowardice and desertion. He 
called them his "leg cases," and pardoned 
nearly all of them. "They are the cases," 
he said to some one, "that you call by 
that long name of 'cowardice in the face 
of the enemy;' but I call them my leg 
cases. For if God Almighty has given a 
man a cowardly pair of legs, how can they 
81 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
help running away with him?" * In other 
words, he recognized in the largeness of 
his nature, more clearly far than most 
have done, that the man who begins by 
shrinking from an unaccustomed danger, 
may yet be disciplined into steadfast 
valor. Thus it was with the famous and 
intrepid Henry of Navarre. In his first 
campaign he literally dragged his cower- 
ing body forward towards the foe, and his 
comrades heard him talking to himself, 
and vowing that he would not yield to 
fear. Yet Henry lived to make his crest 
become a "guiding star," and 

" Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet 
of Navarre." 

2. It being true, as we have seen, that 
courage often comes by practice; that it is 

* Norman Hapgood, Abraham Lincoln, the Man of 
the People, p. 300. 

82 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
a matter of discipline, and self-control, 
— a habit even which some of the most 
heroic people in the course of history have 
acquired only along certain lines, — we 
go on to consider how it is a quality that 
needs especially to be developed for the 
true and proper living of our daily lives, 
and the right performance of our ordinary 
duties. Here, where each of us is living 
just the customary life of a man or wo- 
man; now, in these prosperous and peace- 
ful times, is the place and period for 
bravery and fortitude to be both used and 
shown. For there is a courageous, even 
as there is a most heroic way, of bearing 
burdens, meeting hardships, facing fail- 
ures, overcoming armies of temptations 
and putting them to hurried and confusing 
flight. A man is a hero or a dastard, a 
woman is brave and fearless, or weak and 
83 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
timorous, most of all according to the 
manner and the spirit in which they fight 
this battle of life and confront its varied 
dangers. How many occasions there are 
in the life of every day, how many sudden 
crises — or, if we may hardly call them 
that, how many situations or dilemmas 
— in which it takes courage to speak the 
right word, to evince the proper and the 
called-for disapproval, to do the noble or 
the generous deed. And, if we are not 
prepared, if we are weak and indifferent, 
if we are cowardly at heart, the right word 
does not come from us, we let the slander 
go unanswered, and the vulgar or dishon- 
est act is allowed to pass without our 
challenge. It takes courage — and courage 
is needed in this modern world and it is 
surely virtuous — to withstand and openly 
oppose many of the customs in the fa- 
84 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

miliar sphere of business, and many of 
the practices of fashionable and so-called 
polite society, — to say, *'No! I do not 
approve of that, and I will take no part in 
this!" There are certain practices which 
no amount of fashion can refine, and 
which no politeness can redeem. When 
people take a stand, however, against 
things like these they encounter ridicule; 
and ridicule is the sharpest and most try- 
ing weapon that any of us have to meet in 
this struggle which is known as modern 
life. 

But not to be forgotten or ignored is 
the gleaming and ennobling courage of 
the men and women who stand in the 
trenches of sorrow and failures through 
long days and nights, and who fight down 
disappointments and misunderstandings. 
Most people, perhaps, can find the courage 
85 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

necessary for some sudden crisis, — cour- 
age which will last, it may be, for a few 
short hours, through some sudden burst 
of energy; but it is far more difficult to 
live a whole life bravely, week after week, 
year after year, never to lose heart, and 
with no particular incentive to nerve us 
to our best. Yet there are thousands of 
people who do that, and never gain the 
credit of true courage. Emerson tells us 
that "he has not learned the lesson of 
life who does not every day suppress a 
fear." And how many and how truly 
varied are the daily issues in this world, 
which well may make us tremble, and 
which are rightly met with steadfast 
courage. The Romans called this special 
duty "fortitude." It was courage in the 
face of forSy or chance, or fate. And 
courage such as this is being shown by 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
people very grandly every day. Think of 
all the pains, the worries, and the cares 
of life! Think of the quick and awful re- 
versals that often come in outward for- 
tune! Think of the cruel fate that always 
seems to oppose the efforts many people 
make! Think of the ordinary losses, sor- 
rows, and disasters of the world! And 
then think of the men and women who go 
forward calmly fighting things like these, 
and never showing the white flag of fear, 
— women who live down, and grandly 
rise above, their husbands' disgraces ; who 
go out into the world unarmed, and calmly 
fight its battles; who struggle patiently 
to educate their children; who lay away 
in the grave their dearest treasures, and 
then turn with a smile of pity and a hand 
of encouragement to help the first un- 
fortunate fellow-sufferer they meet! Who 
87 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
of us does not know, or has not heard, of 
lives hke these ? — of people who are not 
embittered, but emboldened by misfor- 
tune; who do not sink, but soar because 
of the burdens which are laid upon them. 
If this is not courageous, and a virtue, 
then the words themselves had best be 
blotted out from life's vocabulary! And 
when we teach our children and young 
people truths like these; when we make 
them see that it is cowardice and weak- 
ness to be overcome by failures and em- 
bittered by life's losses, as much as when 
a soldier turns his back in battle; but that 
it is courageous and heroic to set a cheerful 
face and hold a steadfast front against 
life's troubles, — when we teach our chil- 
dren that, I say, then the same ambition 
that would make them conquer fear in 
hours of actual danger, will come to their 
88 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 

assistance in the path of every-day endu- 
rance. 

People speak of moral courage very 
often, and surely it is well to do so. For 
the morality of many people, — their pu- 
rity, their temperance, their generosity, 
their steadfastness to high ideals, — is 
almost all of it brave, and in the truest 
sense heroic. It has not come without a 
struggle; it has not been maintained with- 
out courageous effort. So men have had 
the strength and the endurance to live 
down and to leave behind a careless or 
indulgent past. Nor has it been accom- 
plished without pain and effort, which 
sometimes has been met and borne with 
sturdy and unflinching resolution. Not 
long ago I heard a college president sug- 
gest in a somewhat laughing, yet a really 
serious vein, that he thought a "hero 
89 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

medal" ought to be bestowed on every 
man and woman who, having reached the 
Psalmist's limit, has kept life clean and 
strong and hopeful, — who has never 
yielded to temptation in a serious way, 
or, having done so, has returned to vir- 
tue's path. For not without much brave 
endurance and courageous effort can we 
live as servants of the moral law. 

3. In saying all of this, however, we 
have not touched as yet upon the in- 
most secret, and the glowing impulse of 
the highest and the purest courage in the 
world. Courage, we have seen, is not the 
absence of fears, but their control. It 
sometimes happens, though, that we our- 
selves do not exert the strong control so 
much as we have it silently and suddenly 
exerted on or through us. People are 
never so calmly and divinely brave in life 
90 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
as when they are lifted up by some great 
cause, and lost to all their narrow, selfish 
thoughts in full devotion to some mighty 
truth and heavenly principle. And this 
in literal fact has been the secret of the 
courage of the greatest and the best the 
whole world over, as it also has inspired 
signally the artless and the weak. The 
mighty heroes of the world have not con- 
trolled their fears; they have lost all con- 
sciousness of fear. In their devotion to 
the cause they served ; in their enthusiasm 
for the ends they sought, all thought of 
self has disappeared, and with it all con- 
cern for danger. Thus Luther went to 
Worms, no matter if opposing devils were 
as thick and red as tiles upon the house- 
tops; and thus he stood alone before his 
host of foes, declaring that he could not 
have done otherwise. 
91 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
"The best courages," said a Puritan 
trooper under Cromwell, "are but beams 
of the Almighty." ^ And no single beam 
from God has shone so fully in the hearts 
of men and women, or with such great 
power, as the beam of Love. It shines 
within the mother's heart, and makes her 
strong with courage from on high, to lose 
her life, if need be, to defend and save her 
offspring. For perfect love doth ever cast 
out fear. It glows within the minds of 
scholars as they seek with eagerness the 
truth and sends great shafts of brilliant 
flame across the hearts and souls of all 
who feel the mighty force of Ought; and 
they gladly and devoutly follow where it 
leads. We sometimes speak of the need 
there is that people should have the cour- 
age of their convictions. But if they really 

^ Emerson, WorJcSy vol. vii, quoted pp. 33, 258. 



THE PILLAR OF COURAGE 
have convictions, — or rather if convic- 
tions once have laid a mastering hold on 
them, — the courage follows as a matter 
of course. 

What we need, therefore, you and I, 
amid the simplest of life's duties and the 
heaviest of its trials and the fiercest of its 
temptations and the darkest of its sor- 
rows, — what we need to keep us brave 
and steadfast is the clear and firm as- 
surance of something larger, higher than 
ourselves to which we owe allegiance. Let 
us only come to feel that God himself has 
need of us, — that he has given us this 
work to do, these tasks to carry through, 
that he has put us here within the ranks 
of life, and that the enemies we fight 
are his enemies as well, — let us only 
feel like that; let us lay firm hold upon 
some great and spiritual truth of life, and 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

then the strength we need is silently and 

yet abundantly supplied us. 

The poet spoke in praise of one who 

gave — 

"His pure soul unto his captain Christ, 
Under whose colors he had fought so long." 

And when we fight beneath the banners 
of that spiritual Captain; when we hear 
his high commands to do them; when his 
spirit comes to be the spirit of our lives as 
well, and we feel ourselves to be about the 
Father's business, — then shall we become 
indeed an "example of a noble courage," 
and leave behind us "a memorial of 
virtue." 



IV 



Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out 
her seven pillars. — Proverbs, ix, 1. 

I Wisdom dwell with prudence. — Proverbs, viii, 
12. 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

The early Hebrew writers were one with 
the philosophers of Greece in their praise 
of wisdom. Our Bible contains what are 
known as the "Wisdom Books," and 
there are no more beautiful descriptions 
in all its pages than those which tell about 
this spiritual quality. "For Wisdom," 
said one of the writers of the Apocrypha, 
"is more moving than any motion; she 
passeth and goeth through all things by 
reason of her pureness. For she is the 
breath of the power of God, and a pure 
influence flowing from the glory of the 
Almighty; therefore can no defiled thing 
fall into her. For she is the brightness of 
the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror 
of the power of God, and the image of his 
97 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
goodness; and in all ages entering into 
holy souls she maketh them friends of 
God, and prophets. For God loveth none 
but him that dwelleth with wisdom." 

With less poetic fervor, but with equal 
insistence, Plato spoke in praise of wis- 
dom. For "excellencies or virtues," he 
said, "are of two kinds: there are human 
virtues, and there are divine virtues, and 
the human hang upon the divine; and 
wisdom is the chief and leader of the 
divine class of virtues." 

In other words, wisdom stood first 
among the virtues which Plato set apart as 
cardinal. It is important to notice, how- 
ever, that what we mean by wisdom, when 
we speak about it as a virtue, is really 
prudence. For prudence is practical wis- 
dom, or wisdom which is applied to the 
ordinary affairs of life. That is to say, it 
98 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

is the evidence that people give us in their 
every-day existence of being v^ise. Plato 
recognized this truth; for when, in the 
Republic, he undertook to describe the 
value of wisdom he found himself de- 
scribing the prudent person. *' The state," 
he wrote, "which we have described, is 
really wise, if I am not mistaken, inas- 
much as it is prudent in counsel. And 
this very quality, prudence in counsel, is 
evidently a kind of knowledge, for it is not 
ignorance, but knowledge that makes 
men deliberate prudently." ^ 

Hence it is that in the Bible the two 
are almost always spoken of together, — 
in the same breath as it were, — as though 
the one could not be understood without 
the other. "For I Wisdom dwell with 
prudence," wrote the Proverb-maker, and 

^ The Republic, book iv. 
99 

Lore. 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
**the wise in heart shall be known as 
prudent." "The wisdom of the prudent 
is to understand his way," is another of 
his sayings. "By the strength of my hand 
I have done it," Isaiah makes the Lord 
of Hosts assert, "and by my wisdom, for 
I am prudent." But "the knowledge of 
wickedness is not wisdom," declared a 
later writer, "neither at any time is the 
counsel of sinners prudence." Jesus him- 
self spoke about the truths which were 
hidden "from the wise and prudent;" but 
when Paul proclaimed the power of the 
Master whom he followed he announced 
that "he abounded in all wisdom and 
prudence." 

It was wholly natural, therefore, that 

the Romans, who were a practical and 

downright people, loving things that could 

be used and understood, should have 

100 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
made the change, and called this virtue 
prudence. It is of prudence, accordingly, 
that we next may take some thought, 
seeing what its place is, and what its 
supporting power, in this temple of the 
virtuous life. 

In one of Albrecht Diirer's frescoes, 
which adorn the walls of a mediaeval 
council-chamber in the gray old town of 
Nuremberg, a famous emperor, whom the 
painter wished to honor with his brush, 
is represented as making his triumphal 
progress down the ages in a golden chariot. 
This chariot is drawn by a number of 
horses, each of which is led by a special 
virtue. At the head of one horse courage 
walks with proud and sturdy step, at the 
head of another justice, and of still an- 
other generosity, and so on. In the chariot 
itself, however, side by side with the em- 
101 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
peror, the figure may be seen of wisdom, 
or prudence, — and prudence holds the 
reins which check and guide the horses 
that are led by all the other virtues. 

The arrangement doubtless was sug- 
gested to the artist by the special qualities 
or characteristics in the life and history 
of the man whom he sought thus to depict. 
Yet, nothing could suggest much better 
the rightful place that prudence holds 
among the other virtues. For it is not 
her function to lead the chariot of life, 
so much as it is to guide it. She does not 
originate so much as check. She is not 
concerned with eagerly hurrying life along, 
but rather with the endeavor quietly to 
hold it back. And this is certainly a very 
necessary function to perform. For, as 
self-control is needed to restrain and curb 
life's lower, dangerous, and wandering 
102 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
impulses, and to keep them from leaping 
over proper bounds, so wisdom, or pru- 
dence, is essential to guide life's higher 
instincts and desires in the right and noble 
path. Courage, as we saw, may often lead 
life headlong into needless danger; and 
there easily may be a sympathy, or love, 
that is weak and even harmful, while we 
frequently behold some phase of generos- 
ity which is neither beautiful nor helpful 
because imprudent and unwise. 

It is doubtless, though, for just this rea- 
son that prudence seems to many people 
unattractive. For I suppose that to many 
of us it really is a comparatively unat- 
tractive quality, or one at least that does 
not seem to waken in us admiration or 
enthusiasm. Prudence, when we look at 
it among the other pillars in life's tem- 
ple, seems severely simple, plain, and un- 
103 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
adorned. It has neither grace of line nor 
wealth of decoration. It may be useful, 
we declare; but it surely is not beautiful. 
Perhaps, indeed, there are those who 
would even feel inclined to raise some 
question of its value. For it clearly may 
be pointed out that many of the great- 
est victories and grandest achievements 
in the course of history, have come from 
blind and rash, impetuous and impru- 
dent action. Men have flung themselves 
headlong into strife, they have run the 
most terrific risks, they have taken the 
most tremendous odds, they have seemed 
entirely heedless of the heavy chances that 
were against them; and, just because of 
this, they have won their victories, gained 
their successes, and worn their laurels, 
which on that account were all the more 
significant and brilliant. 
104 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
I think that many of us have a special 
fondness for heroes of this very kind. 
They captivate our fancy, and call forth 
eager and spontaneous praise. Moreover, 
in the moral life, amid all the dangers and 
vicissitudes of existence, we seem to honor 
most the very ones who fling all prudence 
to the winds. The moral person, we even 
say, is the one who takes no account at all 
of what is safe ; but only thinks of what is 
right; who does not question about prob- 
abilities or possibilities, but simply bends 
to obligation, whatever the self-sacrifice 
required. He does because he ought, irre- 
spective utterly of what he would. 

For this reason we associate prudence 
very often with caution and timidity. 
Emerson spoke of it, for example, as ''the 
virtue of the senses," and said it was 
"content to seek health of body by com- 
105 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
plying with physical conditions, and health 
of the mind by the laws of the intellect." 
There is a prudence, he added, "which 
adores the rule of three, which never sub- 
scribes, which never gives, which seldom 
lends, and asks but one question of every 
project: Will it bake bread?" ^ 

And yet, while all of this is true, it must 
not be forgotten for one moment that there 
are higher reaches to this virtue, and 
larger phases of its full development, 
which lend to life exceeding dignity and 
power. While it is a fact, no doubt, that 
we admire people who take great chances, 
and are willing oftentimes to run grave 
risks, as a rule we do not care to give such 
people too much power, nor to have them 
take control of great affairs. Though we 
praise them when they happily succeed, 

* Emerson, Worksy vol. ii, pp. 210-211. 
106 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
we severely blame them when they mis- 
erably fail, and we have small pity for 
their losses. The people whom we trust 
the most in business, whom we see selected 
every day to carry through important 
undertakings, are the ones who add to 
their honor wisdom, and to great ability 
good judgment, and a careful prudence. 
Moreover, this is true, which is most 
significant: the really prudent person is 
the very one who often seems to the ig- 
norant and uninformed to take grave 
chances, and to run great risks, when he 
is only acting by the light of higher know- 
ledge. For prudence is the faculty of 
looking at things which lie before, — of 
''providing/' as we say, and taking right 
account of what is yet to come. And he 
who does this well in life, who sees things 
clearly in their larger bearings and their 
107 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
true perspective, will often do things 
which appear to blunter minds and lower 
faculties both bold and needless. He is 
really reaching on to something which is 
far above the heads and beyond the sight 
of ordinary people, and only time can 
prove to them that in acting as he did he 
was doing wisely and not rashly. Indeed, 
there are times when it is only prudent to 
be daring. 

As we leave such introductory and 
merely preparatory thoughts as these, let 
me ask you to perceive the need that there 
is in daily life for such a quality as this. 
People often speak about the sins of the 
world, and the suffering that comes in 
consequence. But almost as tragic to my 
mind are the blunders of life, and the awful 
things which follow in their train. People 
all around us, day after day, are blaming 
108 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

themselves not alone for the wrongs they 
have done, but for the mistakes which 
they have made. They have been foolish, 
blind, and stupid. They have lacked the 
grace of sound and saving sense. And it 
always must remain a question whether 
as much evil in this world, as much pain, 
as much serious and lasting harm, is not 
brought about by blindness and mere 
blundering, as is caused by conscious 
wickedness and deliberate perversity and 
evil-doing. It is not enough in this world 
to have good intentions, right desires, 
high ambitions, we must also have sound 
judgment, and the faculty of seeing things 
with clearness. The best intentions some- 
times, and the purest longings, have led 
people into the most grievous wrongs and 
the gravest errors. Because they have not 
seen what they were doing, nor pondered 
109 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
well the path in which their feet were 
led, they have gone on into pain, and loss, 
and sorrow. If we have not, therefore, in 
ourselves the wisdom that we need, the 
only prudent thing for us to do is to go to 
those who can impart it to us. All the 
wealth of rich experience the world has 
earned and won is laid up for us, to be 
drawn upon, and freely used, as we desire. 

We proceed to consider with some care 
the characteristics of the person who is 
nobly and distinctly prudent. What, we 
ask, does the prudent person generally 
do ? What are the traits of character which 
grow up round this central and important 
quality ? 

First of all the prudent person counts, 
as we may say, the cost. He takes ac- 
count, — not in a weak and timorous way, 
but bravely, and because he wisely has 
110 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
allowed experience to teach him, — he 
takes account of consequences. When he 
is tempted to do wrong, to yield to some 
alluring appetite, to engage in some dis- 
honest or not strictly upright practice or 
transaction, he thinks, not only of the 
pleasure that will come by yielding, and 
of the gain that he may reap by slight 
dishonor, but he thinks of what has well 
been called ''the moment after." ^ He 
not only sees things in advance, but he 
jeels things in advance. And the thing he 
clearly feels, and wisely wishes to avoid, 
is the sting of sharp remorse, the awful 
nightmare feeling, which will sometimes 
track a man for years and never leave him 
night nor day, that he has committed a 
grievous wrong, which in one sense never 
can be done away, nor made to be as 

^ J. Brierly, Problems of Living, pp. 136, 188. 
Ill 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
though it had not happened. And who 
can doubt that with prudence such as 
that, which surely is a worthy and a use- 
ful thing to have, there is many a wrong 
in life that would never be committed, 
many a sin that would never be indulged 
in, many a false word that never would be 
spoken, many an act of heartless cruelty 
and thoughtless selfishness that would be 
repented of before it had escaped us! 
How often, if we only stopped to think of 
the remorse, and pain, and agony of mind 
that are sure to follow from some course 
of evil action, we should say to the im- 
pulse as it rose within us. No! I will 
not do this thing; for I feel to-morrow's 
hand upon me, and I know too well the 
nature of the moral consequences. The 
prudent person, therefore, is the one who 
provides against repentance and remorse 
112 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

by guarding well the door of life through 
which they make their silent and unwel- 
come entrance. And of prudence such as 
this there surely is a pressing need in life. 
But there is another and a larger way 
in which the prudent person counts the 
cost, and of which we need to take par- 
ticular and careful thought at just these 
present times. All of us have certain 
higher, nobler, better instincts that be- 
long to us as men and women, and which 
count for vastly more than does the sordid 
love of gain and the selfish love of ease. 
These, we all agree, should be developed, 
nourished, and sustained. Among them 
we must count our love of goodness and of 
beauty, our instinctive feelings of trust, 
and reverence, and faith. These are qual- 
ities not lightly to be lost from life, for 
they add not only to the joy, but also 
113 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
to the dignity and worth of being. There 
are many of us, therefore, who need to 
stop and ask ourselves at times whether 
we are giving these a chance to grow and 
flourish in the dull and heavy atmosphere 
of business or of pleasure where we live 
perhaps so constantly. Are we spiritual 
enough not to be hardened in these cease- 
less efforts that we put forth after wealth ? 
Are we alive enough not to die in a spirit- 
ual sense beneath this burden that we bear 
of what is purely temporal and outward.'^ 
A few years since, near a little Russian 
town this side of Moscow, an old-fash- 
ioned knapsack was dug up by a peasant 
who was ploughing in the field . It was filled 
to the brim with French coin, which bore 
the date of nearly a century ago, and to 
those who knew its history it told a force- 
ful parable of thoughtless and imprudent 
114 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

greed. It had belonged, undoubtedly, 
to one of Napoleon's ill-fated soldiers. 
After his unfortunate invasion of Russia, 
Bonaparte left his army to return more 
slowly, while he himself took hurried 
flight to Paris. He gave his war-treasure, 
which amounted to many millions of 
francs, into the care of Marshal Ney. 
But the transport wagons, which were 
dragging it with difficulty home, became 
entangled in a deep ravine. There was 
no time to be lost, for the enemy were 
following close behind. Rather than see 
the French gold fall into Russian hands 
the Marshal marched his army by the 
wagons. The casks had been broken 
open, and the soldiers were allowed to 
take what they desired. Many of them, 
in their fevered eagerness and imprudent 
haste, emptied their knapsacks, throwing 
115 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

away all food and clothing, — the very- 
essentials of life, — and staggered forward 
joyously beneath their glittering load. But 
the treasure, which they looked upon as 
such a benefit, was no protection against 
icy winds and drifting snow, and many 
of them perished miserably, weighed down 
to death by what was meant to give them 
life. 

Thus, in this world of every-day ex- 
istence, there are people all around us 
who heedlessly allow their higher, their 
moral, their spiritual instincts to be 
crushed out of them by very similar bur- 
dens. They do not count the cost, they 
do not prudently consider whether they 
have strength enough to stand erect, and 
march with vigor forward, as soldiers of 
the living God, while all their thoughts and 
hopes are bent on worldly things. And I 
116 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

am not referring now to the one desire 
only of mere outward wealth or gain. 
As all of us know well, there are other 
equally absorbing interests and instincts, 
— worldly, shallow, narrow principles, — 
which perhaps cannot be banished utterly 
from life, but which need to be indulged 
in prudently, and kept in due subjection. 
In our love of pleasure, with our thirst 
for power, or seeking only for our self- 
ish comfort or indulgent ease, we need to 
beware lest the nobler faculties within us 
are drugged and slowly stifled, till they 
fall at last into a deep and wakeless sleep. 
One of Tolstoi's vigorous and match- 
less parables is entitled, "Does a man 
need much land.?" It tells the story of a 
man who was offered the title to as much 
land as he could walk or run around, 
between the hours of sunrise and of sun- 
117 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
set. With eager energy he starts forth in 
his race against himself for wealth. His 
desires grow as he proceeds. Can he get 
this much into his circuit, he wonders, 
as he presses forward.^ Yes; he must 
have this piece of woodland, this stretch 
of meadow, these acres here, and those 
which lie beyond. His hopes mount high, 
— his efforts are redoubled, his pace is 
quickened! All day he runs, till, spent 
and feverish, he sees the goal already 
dim amid the slanting shadows of the 
setting sun. He pushes toward it pant- 
ing hard; he nears it; he reaches it, and 
pitches forward, — dead I And then, the 
moralist declares, "They took a hoe and 
dug a grave for him, just long enough 
from head to foot, and buried him." And 
many people die thus, and are buried in 
a spiritual sense each day, because they 
118 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
do not prudently consider the worth of the 
higher faculties that God has given them. 

Yes, the prudent person is the one who 
counts the cost in life; who understands 
that we are debtors in this world, "not to 
the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if we 
live after the flesh we shall surely die; 
but if through the spirit we do mortify 
the deeds of the body, we shall live." 

There is a second and a nobler thing 
distinctive of the prudent person. Not 
only does he count the cost, but, as the 
word itself implies, he takes a clear ac- 
count of time. He knows that nothing 
worthy, or of real importance in this world, 
can be achieved or brought about at once. 
He is willing, therefore, and prepares his 
mind to wait. He does not rush in with 
impetuous hope, and think to change 
things, or to make them better, all at 
119 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
once, — whether it be his own character 
that needs to be reformed, or the world 
itself in which he lives; but he prepares 
himself for steady effort and continuous 
endeavor. And this, I cannot help believ- 
ing, is a very necessary quality to have, so 
far as the acquisition and development 
of the various virtues are concerned. Let 
it be the calm repose of self-control that 
we distinctly lack and which we struggle 
to secure; or the power of a steadfast 
courage; or the breadth and beauty of 
true magnanimity, — and the thing we 
need most to remember is, that moral 
graces such as these can never be per- 
fected all at once. 

"Souls are built as temples are, — 
Inch by inch in gradual rise 
Mount the layered masonries. 

Through the sunshine, through the snows, 
120 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 

Up and on the building goes; 
Every fair thing finds its place. 
Every hard thing lends a grace, 
Every hand may make or mar." * 

If we are content to give long weeks^ 
and weary months and even years to the 
training and cultivation of the mind, we 
should not hope to accomplish great re- 
sults more easily where conscience and 
the character become concerned. The 
trouble with too many of us is, that we 
think to bring these things about with 
ease. We make great resolutions, which 
exceed our power to perform. And then, 
because we fail to keep these promises 
we make ourselves, discouragement sets 
in, and we come to be dissuaded from the 
task. But the prudent person understands 
all this. He looks ahead, beyond the 
lesser resolution to the large endeavor, 

* Susan Coolidge. 
121 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
and across the failure of to-day to the 
light which shines out from the triumph 
of some long to-morrow. His wisdom 
teaches him to wait. 

Lastly, there is this distinction of the 
prudent person, — that he sees things in 
the right perspective. Because the faculty 
is his to look ahead, he sees beyond the 
petty troubles and the temporary trials 
that are near at hand, and does not think 
them larger than they really are. To-day, 
to-morrow, and the dim day after that, 
all come within the range of his endeavor ; 
and the failure that his wisdom cannot 
help him to avoid, he is well prepared, at 
least, to meet. 

And, as we all may look beyond things 
which are hard and painful till we see 
them fade away in the glory of the far hori- 
zon, so we should train ourselves to look 
122 



THE PILLAR OF PRUDENCE 
above them, till we find them one by one 
transfigured in the richness and the glory of 
a higher truth. There is a prudence that 
contributes to religious faith even as the 
highest wisdom is an unspotted mirror of 
God's power and the image of his good- 
ness. The doubts and questionings of to- 
day, the hard experiences, the unsettling 
theories that seem to undermine and take 
away our faith, — oh, let us not give way 
to them too readily ! When first they come 
upon us, and prefer their claims, they seem 
of more importance than they really are. 
It may be that to-morrow's light will show 
them to us in their true perspective. Thus 
it has been in the past; for many times the 
hasty and imprudent have declared that 
faith was undermined at last, and made 
of no avail. And thus it will be doubtless 
in the future. But the prudent can afford 
123 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

to wait. ''For wisdom is more moving 
than any motion. She is the breath of the 
power of God, and the brightness of the 
everlasting light." In her light "we shall 
see light," and be led along that shining 
path which ever brightens toward the 
perfect day. 



Father, forgive them; for they know not what they 
do. — Luke, xxiii, 34. 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

It sometimes happens in the historic 
churches and the great cathedrals of the 
world, that one special pillar may be seen 
which stands out from the rest, and is 
conspicuous for its graceful beauty or its 
wealth of decoration. Thus it is, for in- 
stance, in that famous little church which 
many people visit in the neighborhood of 
Edinburgh. Roslin Chapel has its cele- 
brated ''Prentice pillar," in regard to 
which a weird and tragic tale is told. And 
thus it likewise is in gray old Hereford 
Cathedral. There, "through the arches 
of the screen," and beyond "the matchless 
choir with its handsome Norman arch," 
may be seen a single pillar which supports 
in rich design the vaulting of the heavy 
127 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
roof. It has, perhaps, no more importance, 
so far as value of construction is con- 
cerned, than many of the others; but it 
far surpasses them in interest and beauty. 
And at certain times of day the Hght so 
falls upon it underneath the shadowed 
arches that a cross is formed in vague but 
visible outline. It is known among the 
worshipers at Hereford as "the Shadow 
of the Cross." 

Thus it is with the virtue of magna- 
nimity, which is, perhaps, the most beauti- 
ful among the pillars in life's temple. And 
the words which seem to me most fittingly 
to set it forth are those spoken by the 
Master from the cross, "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." 

Magnanimity is not a virtue which ever 
has been ranked as cardinal, and yet it 
bears direct relationship to one such 
128 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

virtue. Justice in Plato's system was a 
chief among the virtues, and justice is 
something that can never be outgrown 
nor set aside. And yet there is a sense, in 
the Hfe of the individual at least, in which 
justice flowers into magnanimity. There 
are times in all our lives, as later we shall 
come to see, when it is not exemplary, nor 
excellent, to insist upon what is absolutely 
just, exacting what the law allows. Occa- 
sions of distinct importance come when the 
thing expected of us is to be forbearing, 
forgiving, and magnanimous. This truth 
is one which early came to be perceived. 
"In Aristotle's system," says a writer,* — 
and the statement is partly, though per- 
haps not absolutely true, — "In Aris- 
totle's system magnanimity occupies the 
supreme place," as in Plato's system jus- 

* Edward H. Griggs, The New Humanism^ p. 130. 
129 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
tice does. Moreover, the point on which 
the later thinker most of all remarked was 
the beauty of this virtue. " Magnanim- 
ity," said Aristotle, "seems to be a kind of 
ornament of all the other virtues, in that it 
makes them better, and cannot be without 
them, and for this reason it is a hard matter 
to be really and truly magnanimous ; for it 
cannot be. without thorough goodness and 
nobleness of character." ^ Hard to em- 
body though it be, however, and difficult 
in any full sense to attain, — a virtue, in- 
deed, which none but the noblest and the 
truest of the race have lived out grandly, 
— it is also one which the veriest com- 
mon places of existence, the trivial rela- 
tionships, the jealousies, the rivalries, the 
fancied injuries of social life, make room 
for and demand. 

^ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book iv, ch. iv. 
•130 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

As I have said, however, we cannot 
come to understand it better than by tak- 
ing thought of the famous words of Jesus 
on the cross. Certainly they are among 
the most wonderful words in history when 
we consider the conditions under which 
they were spoken. Set them like jewels 
in the gold of understanding thought, and 
how they flash with meaning, and reveal 
the mysterious depths of beautiful and 
tender color! Here was a man betrayed 
by his fellow-men, persecuted, mocked, 
reviled, and finally nailed upon a cross, 
and left to die. He was a man, mark you, 
who had injured no one; against whom 
no accusation could be brought of cruelty 
or treachery or violence. Not one of those 
who persecuted and abused him had any 
grievance to make good! And how did 
their victim meet them.? Did he resent 
131- 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

their spite, and bitterly accuse them of 
their sin, calling down the wrath and pun- 
ishment of God upon their heads, as justly 
might have seemed his right ? No ! but he 
took them up into his great heart of pity 
and forgiveness, understanding that they 
acted blindly and in ignorance! He 
prayed that divinely tender prayer for 
them, "Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." Only a great 
soul could have acted thus! None but a 
large and divinely generous heart could so 
have lifted itself out of the realm of natural 
thoughts of punishment, if not revenge, 
into that of tenderness and pity. 

A somewhat similar prayer was put in 
the mouth of Stephen, who was the first 
of all the Christian martyrs. Stephen was 
cast out of the city for his heresy and blas- 
phemous teachings, and was put to death 
132 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

beneath an avalanche of stones. And when 
he kneeled down to receive the cruel blows 
his eyes were turned toward heaven, and 
he cried out, " Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge! And when he had said this, he 
fell asleep." The same chivalrous and 
noble spirit was displayed long centuries 
later by William the Silent, Prince of 
Orange, and founder of the Dutch Re- 
public. He had been shot down by a 
cowardly assassin, the hired menial of 
the king of Spain. From his bed of pain, 
however, which all supposed would be 
his bed of death, he gave clear orders for 
the lenient treatment of his assailant, and 
forbade the use of torture, which was then 
so commonly employed. 

Now these, it will probably be said, are 
instances of forgiveness, bearing witness 
to tenderness of heart; and such indeed 
133 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
they are. But the truer witness which they 
bear is to largeness, rather than to ten- 
derness of soul; and largeness of nature 
or of soul is magnanimity. The deeds are 
those of forgiveness, or forbearance; but 
the virtue they illustrate is that of being 
magnanimous. 

The word "magnanimous," as of course 
is clear, is made up of two Latin words, 
— magnus and animus. The magnani- 
mous person, therefore, is the person of a 
large spirit. That is to say, he is the big- 
souled, or the generous-spirited person, as 
contrasted with the man or woman who is 
small and narrow and petty-spirited. It 
is very important to understand exactly 
what is meant by animus, or "spirit." 
In the first place it does not mean mind. 
The person who has a large mind — a 
mind that stores away innumerable facts, 
134 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 
or a mind that is receptive and eager to 
find new truth — is not of necessity mag- 
nanimous. Such a person may, of course, 
possess this virtue; but something more 
than mental breadth has gone to consti- 
tute it. Neither do we mean *' heart" 
when we say spirit. Some of the biggest 
and tenderest-hearted people in this world 
— people who have an almost infinite 
capacity for feeling the sufferings of others 
and entering into their distresses — have 
small capacity for ignoring wrongs and 
forgetting injuries, and rejoicing in the 
successes others win; and thus can lay no 
claim to being large of spirit. By spirit, 
therefore, we mean that deeper, vaguer, 
and less tangible quality, which is, as it 
were, the essence or the aggregate of a 
person's inner nature, and the general 
effluence of character and disposition. 
135 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
We go on, then, to consider exactly what 
it means in a practical sense to be magnan- 
imous, and where and how this virtue may 
be given illustration in the realms of every- 
day existence. None of us expect to meet 
the fate of Jesus, nor even to be stoned by 
a hostile mob as Stephen was, nor to be 
shot down like the Prince of Orange. Yet 
there must be thousands of less striking, 
though no less actual, occasions in the 
stress and turmoil of the world and life, 
which show us to be either large or small 
of nature and of soul. 

First of all, we find this matter of injvr 
ries or wrongs. A great many people are 
met with by us all who continually have a 
"grievance." They complain of the injus- 
tices they suffer, and the wrongs they have 
sustained. Some one has injured them, or 
seemingly has slighted or forgotten them. 
136 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

An honor that they looked for has escaped 
them, or some recognition which they 
thought their right has passed them by. 
Now, the small person remembers and 
broods over all such things until they seem 
a great deal more important than they 
really are; whereas the larger or mag- 
nanimous person scarcely gives them any 
thought, and, even when he takes account 
of them, they do not cause him any pain 
or worry. Thus Emerson wrote of Lin- 
coln, " His heart was as great as the world, 
but there was no room in it to hold the 
memory of a wrong." * (And the same 
might just as truly have been written of 
Emerson himself.) It was a saying of the 
martyred statesman indeed, that "A good 
man will not insult me, and a bad one 
cannot." 

* Emerson, Works, vol. viii, p. 301. 
137 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

No point, I suppose, in practical ethics 
troubles most of us much more than the 
commandment which forbids retaliation. 
Many of us believe, with more or less ex- 
plicitness, in the right of meeting injury 
with injury, insult with insult, wrong with 
wrong. We claim the right of giving back 
as good — or, as we had better say, as bad 
— as we receive. This is only justice, we 
declare. And so we speak about the things 
that we are "justified" in doing, — that 
is to say, about the things which make con- 
ditions just; for that is what the meaning 
is of "justify." We dwell, too, on the ven- 
geance that we have a right to take, and 
the retribution we are warranted in seek- 
ing. This was the spirit of the primitive 
Jewish law which stipulated "an eye for 
an eye, a tooth for a tooth, burning for 
burning, wound for wound, and stripe for 
138 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

stripe." And that old law was a great 
step in advance when first it was estab- 
lished. Before that time men claimed a 
life for an eye, and they killed an enemy 
who had given them a wound or stripe. 
A stop was therefore put to wholesale ven- 
geance when the priests insisted that a 
man should retaliate only to the exact 
extent of the injury received. In laying 
down that law the cause of justice was 
promoted. But the time came, in a later 
age, when it was shown to be a nobler 
thing to be magnanimous than merely 
just; to forgive and not exact; to forbear 
and not retort. Moreover, this ideal is one 
which echoes round the world in moral 
precept and in noble practice. "Who is 
the great man.^" asked the mighty seer 
of ancient India; and he answered, "He 
who is strongest in the exercise of pa- 
139 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

tience; he who patiently endures an in- 
jury." And then the Greek philosophers 
take up the cry: "One who is injured 
ought not to return the injury as the mul- 
titude think; for on no account can it be 
right. Therefore it is not right to do an 
evil to any man, however we may have 
suffered from him." "Nothing is more 
praiseworthy," wrote Cicero, "and no- 
thing more clearly indicates a great and 
noble soul, than clemency and readiness 
to forgive." The command of Mahomet 
is much the same: "Pardon others readily 
and do only good unto all. Fair is the 
dweUing-place of those who have bridled 
anger and forgiven their adversaries." 
And in that great spirit was the action 
of the youthful David, who forbore to 
slay the man who was hunting him to 
death, and whom fate had placed within 
140 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

his grasp. ''See," said David, "and know 
that there is neither evil nor transgression 
in mine hand, and I have not sinned 
against thee; yet thou huntest for my soul 
to take it!" 

It is no doubt difficult to act consistently 
and well in ways like these. The princi- 
ple to many of us seems entirely impracti- 
cable. The point, however, that we need to 
get distinctly in our minds is this, — that it 
is merely a question of how large we are. 
The mighty lion in the forest, for the very 
reason that it is the king of beasts, dis- 
dains to take account of lesser creatures. 
And so the man or woman who is genu- 
inely large of soul may calmly move along 
through life untroubled by the stings and 
worries or the little misconceptions and 
vexations of the world. An old Persian 
writer always seemed to me, indeed, to 
141 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
teach this virtue as none others have. Let 
us be, he said, Hke the mountain lake, and 
not Hke the wayside pool. For the shal- 
low pool becomes defiled by every stone 
thrown into it; but the mountain lake is 
large and deep enough not to have the 
clearness and beauty of its waters spoiled 
by such a slight disturbance. 

Another feature, and one most promi- 
nent in the virtue of magnanimity, is the 
readiness and capacity to enter into and 
appreciate the successes and the joys of 
others. We are well acquainted with the 
duty and the grace of sympathy, which 
literally means to suffer with. But what 
we really need is another word, which 
should be as freely used, and would mean 
rejoicing with. It is natural with us all 
to weep with those who weep. There is 
something in our natures which disposes 
142 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 
us to grieve with those who fail, and to 
mourn with those who suffer. But it is a 
harder though a no less lovely thing to 
rejoice with those who have some genuine 
cause for gladness. It oftentimes requires 
true nobility of soul to do that heartily and 
well. The poor dumb animal will often 
be at pains to assist a wounded fellow- 
creature; but it takes much more at times 
than the simple manly or the womanly in 
us — it takes whatever godlike there may 
be about us — to make us rejoice at the 
successes others have. It is one thing for 
the successful person to be glad of the 
success of others; and simple enough for 
the happy person to enter into others' 
happiness! It was comparatively natural, 
though graceful and praiseworthy as well, 
for a man like Lowell to declare that one 
of the joys of his later life was to count the 
143 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
triumphs of his friends. And thus it was 
with Michel Angelo, who could well afford 
to be magnanimous. Yet the mighty 
sculptor carved his memory more deeply 
in the walls of time by reason of the 
praise he gave to others with such gen- 
erous freedom. There are works of art 
still standing in his native city which are 
less associated with the men who wrought 
them than they are with the man who so 
freely praised them. It may be that we 
hardly can recall the artist's name who 
wrought the bronze gates of the little 
Baptistery ; but we remember well how 
Angelo declared that they were "fit to be 
the gates of Paradise." 

An attitude like this, as I have said, is 

comparatively natural and simple for 

those who have themselves succeeded. But 

how much harder it is, how much grander, 

144 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 
how much more magnanimous, in short, 
for the disappointed and afflicted in this 
life to clasp with warmth and fellowship 
the hand of prosperity and joy, and to 
walk in happy comradeship through life 
with those who have gained where we have 
lost! Nothing indeed in the world is 
much more beautiful and touching than 
to see men and women who have failed 
in life themselves, who have struggled 
bravely and eagerly for success and lost 
it, who have hoped and dreamed and 
loved, and have plucked nothing at the 
end but the bitter fruit of disappoint- 
ment, — nothing, I say, is much more 
beautiful and touching than to see such 
people large and generous-hearted enough 
to forget their own failures, and bury their 
own chagrin, in the joys and satisfactions 
others have. Day by day we need to keep 
145 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

the beauty of this larger and appreciative 
spirit clearly in our minds. It is so easy 
in this world to criticise and censure, — 
it is so common a thing, alas! to hear 
the talents and achievements of other 
people minimized and treated lightly, — 
that it is refreshing, and uplifting even, 
to come in touch with those who are big 
enough, and with sufficient breadth of 
soul, to rejoice with those who find pro- 
sperity, and to glory in their real attain- 
ments. 

Another phase of magnanimity on no 
account to be overlooked, is the capacity 
to understand and to make allowance for 
the difficulties, trials, and temptations that 
other people often have to fight against, 
while doing justice also to their worthy 
traits of character. 

One of the unfortunate things in life is 
146 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 

the fact that the very goodness of good 
people sometimes makes them almost 
wicked. As all of us know well, the 
most irreproachably upright people in 
this world are sometimes cruel and nar- 
rowly unflinching in their attitude toward 
every form of wrong and sin. They are 
so insistent on the path of virtue for them- 
selves that they draw aside their social 
garments lest by chance they brush against 
some form of wickedness and error. And 
I do not say that there may not often be 
excuse for this. And yet, upon the other 
hand, and over against such narrow and 
partially virtuous lives as these, I simply 
set the great example of the Master. How 
beautifully, and with what unerring con- 
stancy, he revealed in varied ways the 
largeness of his noble nature, allowing for 
the fact that some people are tempted so 
147 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
much more severely than others are, and 
taking into clear and full account the 
heavy odds that sometimes are against 
the living of the virtuous life. He did not 
wait until he hung upon the cross before 
he spoke the generous word to those who 
had blindly erred and deeply sinned. It 
may be that his own temptation taught 
him, as it is a pity others are not oftener 
taught, to be forbearing, merciful, and 
patient, — to take people at their best 
and not their worst, and to trust them for 
the things they yet might make themselves. 
To be kind, therefore, instead of cruel, 
thoughtful and not indifferent, generous 
and hopeful while never selfish and de- 
spondent; to be willing to do a favor even 
when trouble is involved, and anxious to 
lighten burdens at the cost of adding to 
our own, — that is a true philosophy of 
148 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 
life and the religion which makes one a 
disciple of the Master. 

And now, consider finally that kindred 
feature in the life of magnanimity, — the 
power, namely, to appreciate and value 
rightly the good qualities in people which 
are not particularly our good qualities, 
and the ways they have of being help- 
ful in the world, which are not our own 
especial ways. All of us are born with 
definite tendencies, with varying "likes" 
and *' dislikes," with differing capacities. 
These are peculiarly our own. But other 
people, to a similar degree, have theirs. 
The world is made up of an almost infinite 
variety of moral and spiritual gifts. And it 
needs them all. For the kingdom of hea- 
ven is indeed most like a net which is cast 
into the sea, and gathers of every kind, 
and we should all allow for this diversity. 
149 



THE TEIVIPLE OF VIRTUE 
We should be large enough to recognize 
the value of very differing "operations." 
For "He gave some to be apostles, and 
some, prophets, and some, evangelists, and 
some, pastors and teachers, for the perfect- 
ing of the saints," for the slow upbuild- 
ing of this mighty world in righteousness 
and love. And if all were prophets, where 
would the quiet hearers be.^ If all laid 
greatest stress on justice, where would pity 
be.'^ If all put courage first, what would 
become of mercy .'^ And if all insisted on 
entire independence, what would unself- 
ish service count ? But now has the great 
God, who is over all, appointed tasks 
which each may find a joy in doing well; 
and the saint's self-abnegation and the 
hero's courage and the strong man's self- 
control, together with the tenderness, the 
generosity, the faithfulness, the eamest- 
150 



THE PILLAR OF MAGNANIMITY 
ness of thousands of unnoticed lives, are 
all deserving in his sight. 

" All service ranks the same with God : 
. . . God's puppets best and worst 
Are we; there is no last nor first." 

We all should learn in some sense to 
approach this all-embracing and inclu- 
sive view. Our magnanimity should be 
patterned, albeit so remotely, after God's 
omnipotent perfection, who makes his 
sun to shine and his rain to fall, on the just 
and unjust, on the evil and the good. 

There can be no doubt about it ; to 
be big and broad and generous, — to be 
large in outlook, large in forgiveness, large 
in our readiness to allow for all the dif- 
ferences of life and of opinion ; to be ready 
as we may to overlook the feeble, the 
erring, and the false, but to look with 
kindness and appreciation on the eager, 
151 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
the earnest, and the hopeful, — that is 
what it means to be magnanimous. And 
whoso has attained to that great virtue 
is fitted, not alone to be a simple pillar 
in the temple of his God, but he comes to 
be a pillar of surpassing beauty, on whom 
the light and shade shall fall, which have 
their radiant source in heaven itself. 



VI 



And if there be any other commandment, it is smnmed 
up in this word, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself. . . . Love therefore is the fulfilment of the 
law. — Romans, xiii, 9, 10 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

With the four great virtues which Plato 
outHned and described in his Repubhc, 
the philosophers of Greece and Rome 
remained content. These virtues were 
looked upon as all-sufficient, and were 
thought to leave no moral feature of im- 
portance out of the account. To be tem- 
perate and courageous, just and prudent, 
were the great essentials of the noble and 
perfected life. Neither the state nor the 
individual could be looked upon as rightly 
organized or well developed, if any one 
of these distinctive qualities were lack- 
ing; but when they all were present an 
harmonious whole was reached. "Such, 
then," says the great philosopher, after 
he has described these virtues in detail, 

155 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
"is the state or constitution which I call 
good and right, and such is the good 
man; and if this one be right I must 
call the rest bad and wrong; applying 
these terms both to the organization of 
states and to the formation of individual 
character." * 

It is evident enough, however, when 
once we come to think of it with care, that 
these famous virtues have to do with a 
portion only of the fabric of our human 
nature. Wisdom and justice spring from 
intellectual insight; courage and self- 
control depend upon the action of the 
will. The Greeks, therefore, with their 
intellectual supremacy, gave finest illus- 
tration to the first two virtues; the Ro- 
mans, with their practical discernment 
and forceful common sense, gave fullest 
^ The Republic, book v. 
156 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
evidence of the others, both in pubUe and 
in private life. 

But the intellect and the will, as I have 
just suggested, do not exhaust the rich 
resources of the human soul. The central 
function of our life is still untouched. The 
heart remains, — the heart with its sweep- 
ing impulses and deep emotions of love, 
compassion, generosity; of self-forgetful- 
ness and sympathy and service. When 
you see a man or woman temperate and 
courageous, magnanimous and prudent, 
that and nothing else, you do not see, 
from our modern point of view, a finished 
and perfected manhood or womanhood. 
There is one thing lacking, and that miss- 
ing element is not alone of supreme im- 
portance on its own account, but its more 
distinctive and much greater value lies 
in this, — that it lends to each of the four 
157 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

great virtues new dignity and warmth, a 
deeper richness and intensity of meaning. 
Courage, as we saw, is never so great and 
wonderful as when a perfect love has cast 
out every fear; while prudence, magna- 
nimity, and self-control become more 
natural and easy when nurtured by some 
deep and generous emotion. 

It was just this added element which 
Christianity brought into the world. The 
Christian religion came into contact with 
the pagan world, which was cold and 
formal, proud and on the verge of national 
decay, and, with its heart of pity and its 
message of unselfish service, it supplied 
a mighty moral need. The truth of this 
was not at first distinctly understood; or, 
at least, not formally announced. The 
time came, however, when the Christian 
teachings were carefully brought to bear 
158 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

upon the pagan virtues, and, when this 
took place, the ancient virtues were not 
swept away; they were merely added to. 
According to Thomas Aquinas Christianity 
added three new virtues to those which 
Plato had originally stated. These were 
the three abiding elements of Paul, — 
faith, hope, and charity. St. Thomas 
gave them the name of "theological vir- 
tues," and placed them above the classic 
and familiar four. They were, he said, 
the virtues which "set man in the way of 
supernatural happiness." ^ 

Now, whatever may be said of the fit- 
ness of classifying faith and hope as vir- 
tues, when they properly are attitudes of 
mind, it hardly can be claimed, I think, 
that Christianity contributed anything dis- 

* Aquinas, Ethics^ translated by Joseph Rickaby, vol. 
i, question Ixii. 

159 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
tinctly new in these respects. Long cen- 
turies before the Christian era people had 
beheved with great intensity and real con- 
viction, while hope is a natural attitude of 
life in nearly all its phases. All that fairly 
can be claimed for the Christian religion 
in this respect is, that it gave to faith a 
new content, and to hope a new object. 

With love, however, it was wholly dif- 
ferent. When the Christian communities 
first took root and sprang up in pagan 
Rome, the thing that was remarked about 
them was not, "See how those people 
believe,^' or "See how those people hope/' 
but, "See how those Christians love.'* 
Love, therefore, or charity, which is the 
underlying impulse which gives birth to 
pity, sympathy, self-forgetfulness, gener- 
osity, and service, is the fifth and final 
virtue that well may be considered. 
160 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
It is evident, from what already has 
been said, that love is not so much a 
separate pillar in the temple of virtue, to 
be classed with courage, prudence, self- 
control, as it is an added feature in the 
arrangement and construction of the en- 
tire building, giving depth and greater 
meaning to the whole. Love is the chancel 
where the holy of holies is, the high altar 
whence the incense floats aloft. It is the 
place where the sacred fire burns, which 
sheds a glow among the heavy columns 
and the broadening arches out beyond. 
It is the spot where sacrifices silently are 
made, and mysteries recalled. "A certain 
amount of Stoicism," says a writer, "forms 
the best basis upon which the higher virtues 
can rest. By this I mean that fortitude, 
courage, patience, and the like should 
make the character strong; while love, 
161 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 

sympathy, and helpfulness make it beau- 
tiful." ^ Christianity, in other words, 
came into the world and found these 
noble virtues on which heathendom had 
laid its emphasis; and it did not add 
another pillar to the temple that they 
formed, but it gave that temple added 
glory and significance. For "no true 
virtue," wrote Thomas Aquinas, "can be 
without charity." "Without charity there 
may be an act good of its kind, and yet 
not perfectly good." ^ 

We go on, therefore, to consider this 
altar that was built by love, and to take 
account of certain features which it in- 
troduces into life. In the first place, there 
can be no doubt of this, that a tender pity, 
a compassionate love, a redeeming and 

^ C. C. Everett, Ethics for Young People, p. 32. 
^ Aquinas, Ethics, vol. ii, question xxiii. 

162 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

uplifting sympathy, a general spirit of 
helpfulness, in short, were the things on 
which the Master laid particular emphasis 
in life as well as teaching. Just as hard- 
ness of heart and self-righteous bigotry 
were the sins that he denounced most bit- 
terly, so love was the thing that caused a 
person's sins to be forgiven, while an act 
of helpful service meant fulfillment of the 
entire law. *'In this," he said distinctly 
to his followers at the end, *' shall men 
know that ye are my disciples, that ye love 
one another." 

It is an interesting and inspiring fact 
that this, the central feature in the Mas- 
ter's message to the world, should have 
been so clearly grasped by the first disci- 
ples, and so nobly set forth by them as 
they reached out to redeem men's lives. 
The apostle Paul goes forth into all the 
163 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
darkness and the dangers of pagan unbe- 
lief and opposition, and the grandest thing 
that has been preserved for us among his 
writings is his glorious chant in praise of 
love. St. John lived to be a feeble and 
revered old man, and the last words that 
escaped his trembling lips, according to 
tradition, were substantially the words of 
his Epistle: "Little children, love one 
another, not in word, neither in tongue; 
but in deed and in truth." 

Moreover, obedience to these com- 
mands became, as we have seen, the most 
distinctive feature of those first communi- 
ties and churches. It was the thing that 
won for them at the first respect, and after 
that, in large part, their adherents. On 
one occasion, it is said that a deacon was 
directed by the civil authorities to hand 
over the treasures of his church. For reply, 
164 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
he pointed to the poor, whom they had 
among them, as their only treasures. And 
it was, indeed, a Hteral fact that all the 
possessions of the early church were set 
apart as poor-funds, and were given away 
in charity.* 

What, then, it is time for us to ask, are 
the fruits of this pervasive and productive 
spirit, which was added to the life of 
heathen virtue ? What are the things that 
come into the person's life who kneels 
before the altar love has built .^ I shall 
speak of only two, which are beautiful 
to see, and worthy of devout encourage- 
ment. And the first of these is generosity, 

AJl of us know what generosity is. It 
is, indeed, a virtue in itself, and none is 

* A. Hamack, Expansion of Christianity in the First 
Three Centuries (Theological translation library), vol. i, 
p. 200. 

165 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
much more beautiful to look upon or 
think about. There are noble examples 
of it all around us, and they often seem 
upon the increase day by day. Whether 
we speak of the generosity which finds 
expression in great gifts of money, or of 
the kindred beneficence by which a per- 
son gives not only what he has, but what 
he is, or whether of that large and appre- 
ciative spiritual quality which inspires us 
to give full credit to the deeds and lives 
of others, which we spoke about as mag- 
nanimity, the quality is equally impressive 
and inspiring. 

We are apt, I think, to associate an ele- 
ment of self-denial with each act of gen- 
erosity. The giving of one thing implies, 
we think, the giving up of something else; 
and there is a sense in which that may be 
true. Among all the moral graces of the 
166 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

world, however, none ever seems more 
natural and hearty and spontaneous than 
genuine generosity. As we love to see the 
truly generous act, so the doer of it loves 
to do it. There is a joy in giving that there 
is not in many another virtue, — that 
there is not, for instance, in prudence, 
self-control, or courage even. The saddest 
thing, perhaps, about the niggardly and 
selfish person is the fact that he deliber- 
ately cuts himself off from so great a fund 
of genuine happiness. For, if we count 
over the liberal-handed people whom we 
know, — those who give most constantly 
and largely to the various appeals that 
are made upon us all, — we shall find, I 
think, that, for the most part, they are 
happy, cheerful, and contented people. 
It may be true, no doubt, that their hap- 
piness of nature, or buoyancy of spirits, 
167 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
is one of the things which goes to make 
them generous. But I am very certain 
that it also is a fact that natural cheer- 
fulness becomes increased, and heavy 
gloom at times dispelled, by the inspira- 
tion which comes up to people from the 
fragrance of their own good deeds. 

In this respect generosity, when it is the 
true fulfillment or expression of a loving 
spirit, has a tremendous advantage over 
all the other virtues. Oftentimes we have 
to take it on trust that prudence has 
paid, or that self-restraint has been worth 
while, or that courage has not been idly 
displayed. But the generous person sees, 
and tastes, and often may enjoy, the abun- 
dant fruit his wise and charitable acts have 
helped or tended to produce. The person 
who endows a university, or opens a mu- 
seum, or supphes the city with land for 
168 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
a public park, or helps erect a hospital, 
or makes it possible for some struggling 
youth to get an education, has done no 
more, perhaps, in a moral sense, than the 
person who curbs an unruly temper, or 
nobly forgives an injury, or bravely meets 
a sorrow, or patiently assumes a heavy 
burden. Sometimes he has not done as 
much. But he has the inestimable privi- 
lege very often of seeing the value of his 
generous deed. It is a moral and spiritual 
investment which pays not only semi- 
annual or quarterly dividends with regu- 
larity, but monthly, weekly, even daily 
dividends of joy. If there is one thing, 
therefore, in the world on account of 
which the rich person fully deserves the 
envy of the poor one, it is just for this, — 
his mighty opportunity in life for increas- 
ing his own joy while adding to the joys of 
169 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
others. As a matter of fact, this natural 
and noble form of envy is very widespread 
in the world. People often express the 
longing for riches just because of the 
good they know that they could do with 
them. And I believe, for my own part, 
that in a great majority of cases they would 
really do the good, if the opportunity were 
theirs. 

Perhaps it is well to recognize in this 
connection that generosity is more com- 
mon among women than among men. 
And I say this in spite of the fact that the 
most prodigious gift probably in all his- 
tory was made the other day toward the 
cause of education by a man.^ Kindness, 
sympathy, helpfulness, self-sacrifice, an 

^ John D. Rockefeller in February, 1907, gave 
$32,000,000 to the General Education Board of the 
United States. 

170 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
overflowing mercy, — these are more natu- 
ral to the warm rich soil of the woman's 
nature than the man's. It was Mary, in 
the New Testament story, and not Mat- 
thew, nor James, nor Peter, nor John, 
who poured the expensive ointment over 
the Master's head; and it was a mascu- 
line voice, accustomed to dwell upon the 
cost of things, which cried out against such 
waste. It was from the table of Dives, a 
rich Hebrew gentleman, and not from that 
of any mother in Israel, with her spacious 
heart all full of pity, that the wretched 
Lazarus was allowed to pick the merest 
crumbs. The rich men dropped their 
gifts into the treasury without remark, 
but it was the two mites from the widow's 
scant supply which the Master called at- 
tention to as generous. And thus it al- 
ways has been. The soil of the woman's 
171 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
heart is such that the tender iflowers of 
helpfulness and pity have bloomed in it 
more fragrantly and naturally than ever 
in the heart of man. If she has not given 
as largely in the course of history as 
man, it has only been for the very evident 
reason that she has not had as much to 
give. 

This brings us back, therefore, to the 
central and the all-important point, of 
which we must not cease to take account, 
— namely, that the only truly and nobly 
generous gifts are those which are laid 
upon the altar love has built. We are all 
famihar with the saying that "the gift 
without the giver is bare." And what we 
mean is that the gift which is not made 
with genuine interest, or solicitude, or 
eagerness to help, is neither truly gener- 
ous nor nobly beautiful. Love must be 
172 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

the impulse and the prompting spirit, — 
love, of which the kindred qualities are 
tenderness, compassion, sympathy, and 
human interest. Moreover, this is why 
the generosity which grew up in obedi- 
ence to the Christian teachings was a 
wholly different and a distinctly nobler 
quality than anything the faith of Rome 
or the philosophy of Greece had known 
or taken into full account. Strange and 
almost incomprehensible as it may seem, 
the Christian conception of this duty was 
something almost wholly new, in its 
deeper aspects, to the people who had laid 
such noble emphasis upon the other vir- 
tues. "The caritas of the Christians," 
says a writer,^ "was a different quality 

* Francis G. Peabody, Unitarianism and Philan- 
thro'py, an address before the National Conference of 
Unitarian and other Christian churches, Washington, 
D. C, 1895. 

173 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
from the liber alitas of the Romans. 
Help for the helpless, hospitals for the 
sick, almsgiving as a part of worship, re- 
spect for woman, fraternity between em- 
ployers and employed, — these qualities 
of social life became distinctly Christian 
contributions to society." And thus it was 
as regards the thought and practice that 
belonged to Greece. The idea of human- 
ity, as we call it, or brotherhood, exer- 
cised no influence upon Greek thought 
and civilization. "It never occurred to 
Plato," as some one has expressed it, 
*'that God made of one every nation of 
men for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth." ^ Love, therefore, and the gener- 
osity to which it cannot fail to give expres- 
sive birth, not only was not classed among 

* George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 
p. 57. 

174 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

the cardinal virtues, but it was not looked 
upon as a virtue, or a good at all.^ If you 
examine the list of qualities — a suffi- 
ciently long one — which Aristotle drew 
up as including all the virtues, you will 
find that neither mercy nor sympathy 
nor pity have a place. Instead of them, 
says a writer, ^ "we have a kind of 
heathen counterpart, liberality; and the 
intensified form of the latter, magnifi- 
cence. He is liberal, according to this 
thinker, who gives from a noble motive, 
and in a right spirit, — who gives the right 
amount to the right person at the right 
time. The important person is not the 
recipient of the gift, but the giver; the 
object is not to alleviate suffering, but to 

* See page 7. 

^ Friedrich Paulsen, A System of Ethics, translated 
by F. Thilly, p. 83. 

175 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
glorify the name of the benefactor. Not a 
single word throughout the long discussion 
is said of the neediness of the recipient of 
the gift; compassion plays no part as a 
motive." 

We surely need to remember the reahty 
and importance of this great distinction at 
the present time. We need to cultivate 
and encourage in ourselves and others not 
that liberality alone which marked the 
pagan world, and often reached to very 
noble heights, but that truer generosity 
which is a nobler and a higher thing, be- 
cause it gives fulfillment to the law of love. 
We need to keep in remembrance always 
the root from which it springs, and the 
feelings which alone can cause it to flower 
into fragrant and completed loveliness. 
We talk a great deal at the present time 
about the responsibility of riches and the 
176 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
obligation that there is connected with 
great wealth. We speak no less about 
the need and duty that we all should do 
our parts, and lend the little help we can. 
And all of this is well. It needs to be given 
constant and emphatic utterance. But, 
though it should be taken up and repeated 
with incessant frequency, and with a thou- 
sand times the eloquence it has at present, 
it could not take the place nor do the 
work which belongs to that spirit which 
alone fulfills the law. If our age is 
more generous than any which the world 
has seen, — which it doubtless is, — it is 
because this spirit has not died out of 
society, but has rather been increased. 
The sense of human kinship, the con- 
sciousness and deep conviction that the 
vigorous should help the weak and the 
fortunate uphold the feeble, is the strong 
177 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
controlling impulse which contributes to a 
noble generosity. It is because we see, 
behind the outward walls of hospital or 
asylum, the maimed, the ill, the weak; 
behind the university the hungering stu- 
dent longing for the bread of learning; 
behind the Southern schools an ignorant 
race unable to uplift itself, and environed 
by a people incapable of giving much as- 
sistance, that we make our gifts and try 
to do our parts. 

Even were there time to do so, how httle 
we could tell in any way completely the 
absorbing story of the generous acts of 
life! The sins, the selfishnesses, the short- 
comings, the viciousness of people, — 
these lie in large part on the surface of the 
social world, and we see them often all 
too clearly. But the kindness, the tender- 
ness, the good-will, the generosity of life, 
178 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

become distilled so silently, and so often 
in the shade of secrecy, that, like the dew, 
we find them only in the dawning of sud- 
den insight, when the veil of obscurity has 
been removed. 

But there is a form of generosity which 
does not speak in terms of wealth, unless 
it be those greater riches which belong to 
heart and character. Its vocabulary is 
the greater and the longer one of deeds. 
There is a generosity which consists in 
the giving of one's self. And that is ser- 
vice; in regard to which I wish to say a 
single word or two. 

Service is a second, and perhaps the 
greatest word of love. This was the thing 
on which the teachings of the Gospels lay 
the greatest emphasis. The entire law 
and the Prophets, according to the Master, 
— that is to say the whole of religion, — 
179 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
may be summed up in two great command- 
ments, of which the second was hke unto 
the first. And the second word was simply 
this: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." And to the question of the hes- 
itating and persistent lawyer, as to who 
one's neighbor is, Jesus gave his instant 
and most famous answer: ''It is he to 
whom one may extend a hand in helpful- 
ness or service." Love, therefore, means 
human usefulness. It is the capacity and 
readiness to give assistance when we are 
needed, and to make the roads of life more 
smooth and safe and easy for the spent 
and wounded travelers of earth. 

This is something which does not need 
to be enlarged upon. For to be of use, to 
help, to count for something, to lend a 
hand and bear some part, are things we 
hear about and see most often at the pre- 
180 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 

sent time. The capacity and readiness 
to do are only limited by the number of 
the avenues which wisdom indicates as 
likely to lead on to good, and prove of 
benefit. Moreover, the simple doing of 
good, as we cannot well remind ourselves 
too often, "is but another name for mo- 
rality," or virtue, "in its entirety." And 
though "the parts and signs of goodness 
are many," as Lord Bacon long ago de- 
clared,^ "there are none of more account 
than helpfulness and eager service." For 
" if a man be gracious and courteous . . . 
it shows he is a citizen of the world, and 
that his heart is no island, cut off from 
other lands, but a continent that joins to 
them; if he be compassionate toward the 
afflictions of others it shows that his heart 

^ Bacon, Moral and Historical Workst Essay xiii, " Of 
Goodness, and Goodness of Nature." 

181 



THE TEMPLE OF VIRTUE 
is like the noble tree that is wounded itself 
when it gives the balm." 

"And if there be any other command- 
ment it is summed up in this word, 
namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself. . . . Love, therefore, is the 
fulfilment of the law." Yes! it is indeed 
fulfillment of the highest and completest 
kind! For the person who has in any 
fullness this spirit in his life, has that 
without which no single virtue ever is 
complete, but with and through which 
all other elements of character become 
ennobled and enriched. 

And here is something which the world 
may think about with care, and in which 
there is not a little comfort and divine 
encouragement. We all have periods of 
very painful failure as we go about this 
work of moral self-perfection. These pil- 
182 



THE ALTAR OF LOVE 
lars of the separate virtues that we strive 
to shape and carve and set securely in 
their proper places, often seem to us but 
poorly worked out and developed in our 
lives. Perhaps when we had thought 
them firmly wrought, and fit supports to 
lean upon and hold our characters secure, 
we find them shaken and distorted by 
the fierce temptations of the world. But 
when this happens it is much if we have 
kept that sacred fire burning which has 
power to illuminate and consecrate the 
whole. For he who kneels in reverence 
still before the altar love has built, and 
then goes out to do his part in life and 
bear his burdens, though he fails at times 
in prudence, and perhaps in courage, and 
even in a steadfast self-control, has made 
his very life into a temple of the living 
God. 



(3Et)e laiberjsiDe puss 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S • A 



SEP 11 1907 



